Solution Architecture

Why I’m moving into SA

I’m developing into Solution Architecture because it aligns with what I’ve already been doing informally for years: taking messy cross-functional problems and turning them into clear systems, trade-offs, and delivery paths that hold up under scrutiny.

My engineering leadership background gives me strength in delivery, governance, and operating in constrained environments. I’m building SA depth through hands-on demonstrators and structured learning - and I’m documenting it all so the evidence is visible.

How I’m building capability (evidence-first)

Hands-on builds: real systems with constraints, not toy examples
Architecture artefacts: ADRs, diagrams, security boundaries, cost controls, operational considerations
Learning & validation: targeted certification and structured learning alongside implementation

Case studies (evidence)

I’m building four case studies as progressive architecture demonstrators, each chosen to develop specific SA muscles (identity, cost control, data, operations, scalability):

Portfolio Website - controlled publishing workflow, dev/prod separation, PR-based change control
TacSA Drone Simulation - simulation + analytics concept exploring security boundaries, scale, and trade-offs
Production Dashboard - data platform patterns: ingestion -> storage -> analytics -> visualisation, with operational guardrails
Change Tracker - smaller end-to-end system focused on clean interfaces, auditability, and reliable change handling

TacSA (core architecture demonstrator)

TacSA (Technical Analytics for Complex System Architectures) is my main SA demonstrator: a tactical simulation and analytics concept designed to explore cloud-native architecture, cost control, security boundaries, and scalable workloads.

Key design themes

Public portal for running simulations and viewing outputs (identity, access control, rate limiting, cost guardrails)
Tiered capability model (basic -> advanced analytics)
Private “core logic” boundary where IP is protected and not directly exposed
API-driven interaction patterns with authorised calls and structured outputs
Scale pathways that start cheap and evolve as demand increases

Portfolio platform (this site) as an architecture exercise

This website is also a system I designed and built as a controlled publishing workflow: gated admin access, environment separation (dev/prod), and approval-based deployment via pull requests. The goal was to build a real platform with constraints - and use it as evidence of practical architecture thinking.

Supporting work

I also build smaller tools that reinforce guardrails and reliability - for example a lightweight VS Code extension (“tacsa-branch-sentinel”) that reduces the risk of working on the wrong Git branch via status-bar tinting and workspace-aware handling.

What’s next

Continue building and documenting the demonstrators (architecture, security, cost, ops)
Expand hands-on depth in networking and IaC patterns
Validate progress through certification milestones

Next: Case Studies (the evidence), or Working Style (how I operate day-to-day).