About

I help high-growth engineering teams scale safely. After seeing the same patterns break at Google (Maps, Drive), Commonwealth Bank (8,000 engineers), and Octopus Deploy (hyper-growth from 25 to 100+), I know what makes engineering organizations work - and what destroys them.

What I Do

  • DevEx & Platform: Architect the systems that let teams move 10x faster (ephemeral environments, CI/CD, paved roads).
  • Deterministic AI: Harden LLM prototypes into production systems using validation frameworks.
  • Organizational Design: Build SRE functions, shift-left cultures, and quality guardrails that survive hyper-growth.

The Architect in the Shadows

Most DevEx consultants come from a single domain. I bring foundational experience at scale (Google, CBA) in Quality Engineering, combined with deep SRE and Platform Architecture expertise from hyper-growth startups. That means I see the structural patterns your team misses while executing - the root causes hiding behind symptoms.

Quality engineers know how to reverse engineer systems to a T, identify root cause, and build forward. That mindset is what I bring to DevEx transformation - not just better tooling, but fundamental architectural change.

I'm not the person giving the keynote. I'm the person who built the backstage systems that make the keynote possible. And I'm okay with that.

Recent Proof Points

  • Commonwealth Bank: First Staff QE. Built ephemeral test environments, reducing deployment cycles from days to hours for 8,000 engineers.
  • Octopus Deploy: Founded the platform engineering and SRE function during hyper-growth. Re-architected CI/CD to save $500K+/year.
  • Google Drive/Maps: Built testing infrastructure that caught >75% of crashing bugs within hours, enabling daily releases (down from 3 months).
  • Reggie Health: Transformed a hallucinating voice AI prototype into a deterministic, clinical-grade system handling 100K+ patient interactions.

What I'm Looking For

Fractional engagements (or select Senior/Staff roles) where I can:

  • Architect DevEx and platform systems for scale
  • Apply deterministic AI patterns to production challenges
  • Work with teams who care deeply about sustainable velocity

Based in Sydney. Available for APAC leadership or structured US overlap (not full-time execution).

paulolai@gmail.com