John van der Loo

Upgrade Your React / Next.js Applications - Vulnerability (CVE-2025-66478) Many small and large companies across Australia are rapidly adopting React and Next.js. If you're currently using React, now is the time to ensure your application is upgraded and secure. Upgrading can be costly for large organisations—especially those with multiple micro Next.js applications across different teams. Development, testing, and deployment efforts all add up. However, strong automation (CI/CD, E2E Test) and the use of monorepo tooling (Turborepo, Nx) can significantly reduce these costs and streamline the upgrade process. Affected Next.js Versions Applications using React Server Components with the App Router are affected when running: Next.js 15.x Next.js 16.x Next.js 14.3.0-canary.77 and later canary releases Next.js 13.x, Next.js 14.x stable, Pages Router applications, and the Edge Runtime are not affected. More information: https://lnkd.in/gs_YMjPn

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Thinking about moving from perm to contract in the NZ dev market? Here’s how it actually works 👇 How people really land their first contract? -> Recruiters they already know -> Ex-employers calling them back Cold applying almost never works. Who contracting actually works for? 👌 -> 5–10 years’ experience -> Strong backend/ full stack engineers -> Auckland enterprise = .NET land Think: -> C# / ASP.NET / .NET Core -> Microservices -> Azure -> Middleware & integrations (RabbitMQ, IBM MQ service bus, etc.) -> Not heaps, but a decent amount of mobile development. Large enterprise and banking environments in Auckland are consistently contractor-heavy in this stack. Timing (this is the most important bit) ⏲️ -> Best time: straight after redundancy, immediately available -> Worst time: quitting a safe perm role in a tight market hoping something turns up. Money 💴 💵 💶 -> Typical rates clearing: $80 –$125/hr -> These rates usually require sole contractor setup -> PAYE costs more for the employer → noticeably lower take-home -> Expect 4–10 interviews a year as normal churn If the market slows, you can be without work for 6–12 months. (I have someone on my books who has contracted for 12 years within NZ enterprises, and unemployed since 2024) P.S. - Contracting pays more because someone has to carry the risk. That someone is you ❤️ If you are considering a move like that, come chat.

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Testing code and ensuring quality is an essential but often overlooked aspect of delivering software. Looking forward to hearing interesting insights on this at NZ Tech Rally in Wellington in May.

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The $175K DevOps Unicorn Myth Is Killing Your Team Confession that might sting: I keep seeing brilliant DevOps engineers walk away. Not because of money. Not because of tech. Because they’re asked to be everything to everyone. No? The brutal truth in NZ right now: We’re asking DevOps to be: • Kubernetes wizards • Security experts • Cost-cutting pros • On-call heroes All for one salary. Then we act surprised when they burn out or jump to Australia for 40% more. What’s actually broken: • 88% of job ads demand Terraform. • But only 15% of candidates have real production-level Terraform skills. So everyone chases the same tiny pool of “perfect” unicorns. Meanwhile, strong engineers who could learn in 3 months with mentorship get overlooked. The retention pattern I hear from tech leaders: They describe their DevOps team as a “revolving door.” Common reasons? → Roles written for breadth, not depth → 24/7 on-call with no backup → No growth paths What the smart companies do differently: 1. Stop hunting unicorns. One NZ bank hired a Python-strong engineer with basic K8s and trained them up. Retention jumped to 18 months vs the 11-month average. 2. Fix on-call. An Auckland fintech built proper SRE practices (error budgets, post-mortems). Turnover dropped 60% in 6 months. 3. Create specialization paths. Let engineers choose: Infra, Security, or Platform. People stay when they can go deep, not just wide. The economics driving engineers away: • 28% of DevOps pros in NZ are considering overseas moves. • Australia is absorbing 90% of ICT migrants with salaries at AUD $180–220K (vs NZ $130–150K). But it’s not only about money. It’s about escaping the “do-everything” trap. The opportunity hiding in plain sight: Instead of chasing unicorns: • Tap platform engineers moving from dev • Tap sysadmins ready to learn IaC • Tap cloud architects hungry for DevOps These hires + training = loyal teams. Challenge for you: Look at your DevOps JD. If it lists more than 3 skill buckets, you’re part of the problem. Fix is simple: • Pick 2–3 core techs that matter most • Build growth paths • Train instead of demanding perfection • Implement real SRE practices Why I’m sharing this: Because I’m tired of watching brilliant engineers burn out. And of hearing “we can’t find good DevOps people” on repeat. The talent is here. The demand is real. The approach is broken. Want to see which Auckland companies have cracked DevOps retention? → DM me “retention” and I’ll share what they’re doing. Because the best strategy isn’t chasing unicorns. It’s creating environments where good engineers become great ones. P.S. If you’re a #DevOps engineer nodding along: you deserve better than being “everything.” Those better roles exist, you just need to know where to look. ♻️ If this hit home, repost so more leaders stop chasing unicorns and start building real DevOps teams.

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Too many teams are still chasing DevOps unicorns. The truth? Retention comes from clear roles, growth paths, and building environments where good engineers can become great. Here’s how smart companies are fixing it... 

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The hidden cost of a product built on shifting ground I joined Spathios at a moment when the product had already been on the market for five years Large user base. Lots of functionality And almost no clarity on how the system actually worked under the hood The tech stack had changed several times But one thing stayed consistent, the chaos No one could explain the architecture Documentation was minimal Critical issues were blocking the core user flow, and the previous team simply couldn’t complete them So I had to understand everything from scratch The stack. The deployment pipeline. The way services interacted All the invisible connections that kept the product alive I spent hours with the team, pulling information piece by piece Asking questions. Clarifying flows And fixing things in parallel Building stable containers Maintaining backup versions to keep the live system safe Keeping the project moving while strengthening the foundation We even created a workspace called “Push Spathios to the Fucking Moon.” That’s where the most critical tasks lived And we pushed them forward, one after another Sometimes without sleep Sometimes without breaks But always with focus And the result was worth it. The platform became stable The fail rate dropped Growth became predictable again During my time on the project, Spathios added 10,000+ new users, increased engagement, and improved revenue The product left its turbulence phase and returned to real momentum There’s a simple truth here: Sometimes a single engineer who understands the system end-to-end delivers more impact than an entire agency Because it’s not about headcount It’s about ownership, clarity and the ability to pull a complex product back into shape #startup #founder #softwarearchitecture #backend #productdevelopment #systemdesign #engineering #scalingproducts

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I’ve started learning Angular, not because my role requires it but because I want to better understand how the products and features I design actually get built. Angular is the JavaScript framework we use at Ausmed and it’s generally known for being complex but powerful, especially in enterprise software. That complexity can be intimidating if you're not an engineer. Often when learning something new the question and hesitation is “Where do I actually start?”. I turned to ChatGPT to give me an assessment on Angular to measure my current understanding. It gave me 26 Angular questions to answer ranging from beginner to advanced. As I expected, I struggled toward the end where the questions got more technical. But in the earlier, foundational questions, I felt more comfortable and I got valuable feedback that clarified some concepts I misunderstood or didn’t fully grasp. It wasn’t just about getting a rating (i.e. beginner, intermediate, advanced - I already knew I'm at a beginner level). It became a learning moment. Something that helped me identify knowledge gaps, refine my understanding, and get an idea of best next steps. The takeaway is if you’re looking to upskill in a tool or area, consider trying to get ChatGPT to test you on your knowledge. It can give you insight on your knowledge gaps and suggest a pathway forward on what to focus on. #chatgpt #chatgptprompt #chatgpttips

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The side of vibe coding nobody is talking about. I'm still seeing engineers defending the purity of hand-written code in organisations where the real bottleneck was never the code... it was the thinking behind it. Last week I pushed over 200 commits across multiple areas of our business. Every one reviewed and merged clean by a Silicon Valley veteran engineer. I also spent two days with the team around a whiteboard, and in the background, researched a novel approach to context retrieval for LLM systems and published the findings as a formal research paper. It was a negative result as the approach failed at scale but I'm sharing it publicly because that's how real engineering works. I was expelled from two schools. Never went to university. I don't know how to write code. I published a research paper this morning and won Yorkshire Start-Up of the Year last night. While some engineers are busy protecting their craft, we're using AI to outpace teams ten times our size. Coding was never the hard part. Thinking was. And that's the bit AI can't replace. AUDITSU doesn't move fast for a startup. We move fast. Full stop. Paper linked in the comments.

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Most engineers talk about architecture principles. Few actually build systems that follow them. I've seen this gap at Tipalti, at Mecca Brands, and in every codebase I've inherited. Teams write code that works today. Then traffic doubles. Or requirements change. Or someone leaves. And everything falls apart. The difference between systems that work in production vs. systems that work in demos? Five principles: 🔧 Scalability - Handle growth without rewriting everything 📊 Manageability - Debug and fix issues in minutes, not hours 🧩 Modularity - Change one part without breaking everything 🔌 Extensibility - Add features without touching existing code ✅ Testability - Deploy on Fridays with confidence I just wrote a deep dive on how to actually implement these principles, with real examples from systems I've built and systems I've fixed. Not theory. Practical trade-offs and decisions. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/eaAtpGrU Which principle have you ignored that came back to bite you? Share your war stories below 👇

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🚀 Tech Stack Trends in Australia 2025 Here’s what I've been seeing the most so far this year Frontend - React continues to dominate. Next.js is quickly becoming the default for full-stack apps. Backend - Node.js, Go, and Python are all heavily used, however, I'm finding a lot of businesses wanting more Python developers right now. Databases - PostgreSQL is the go-to to but MongoDB and DynamoDB are also common. Cloud & DevOps - AWS is the most widely used. Docker, Kubernetes, and serverless frameworks are also now standard. What does your current stack look like compared to this? Am I on the money?

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🚀 Did you know? You can use emojis as variable names in PHP! 😲🐘 I just came across this fun little PHP quirk: PHP supports Unicode characters in variable names, which means you can literally use emojis like $🔥 or $😀 as variables. Example: <?php $🔥 = "This is fire!"; echo $🔥; // Outputs: This is fire! ?> While it’s definitely not a recommended practice for production code (because it can hurt readability and maintainability), it’s a neat reminder of how flexible and powerful PHP can be. Have you ever tried using emojis in your code? What’s the coolest or quirkiest thing you’ve discovered about a programming language? Share your stories! 💬👇 #PHP #ProgrammingTips #CodeFun #Developers #TechTrivia

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You're an Australian mortgage broker 🇦🇺 Your client is looking at the document upload page. They're confused about something. Maybe which bank statements to upload. Maybe if a photo of their payslip is okay. So they close the tab, and email you instead. Now you're both waiting. The documents sit there uncollected. Here's what should happen: - Client clicks "Ask" right there on the upload page - You get pinged on your phone - You reply in a few minutes - They upload, and all Done. The fastest way to collect documents is to remove every excuse not to upload them. Brokers, if your client can't ask you a question in platform without leaving the page, they probably won't upload anything at all. Communication in context matters. A lot. (Photo: Me, Luna & Inty in Malaga last year) ---------------- I'm Guy. I've built a document collection & file renaming tool for Australian mortgage brokers with Farzan M.. It speeds up your document collection and frees up your VA for more important work. #mortgagebroker #homeloans #brokertools

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I recently told an NDIS provider that a $12,000 website redesign would be a waste of money. They weren’t happy. But here’s what I found in under 2 minutes 👇 Their website took 8.4 seconds to load on mobile. That was the real issue. Not the design. Not the copy. Not the “outdated look”. Most families searching for NDIS support are on mobile. If a site takes more than 3 seconds, they leave and move on. So instead of a full redesign, we fixed speed and clarity. 3 weeks later: • Load time: 2.1 seconds • Enquiry rate: +42% • Better quality participant enquiries The redesign could wait. Most NDIS providers don’t have a design problem. They have a performance problem. Your website doesn’t need to look fancy. It needs to load fast and be easy for families to understand. Quick test: Open your website on your phone. Count to 3. If it’s not ready, you’ve likely found the issue. And it may be costing you more enquiries than you think. #NDIS #NDISProvider #NDISAustralia #DisabilityServices #SmallBusinessOwner #BusinessOwner #Founders #EntrepreneurLife #WebsitePerformance #LeadGeneration

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After seeing 1000s of engineers referred to Squad, one things is clear: The 10x engineers you want never apply for jobs. They're referred. Elite developers who have built smart contracts with millions of TVL are not hanging out on job boards. This is why we've built our model around high-quality referrals from people who actually understand the technology. Both talented engineers and specialized recruiters who've built real relationships in the space. Our network gets stronger with each addition because quality attracts quality.

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Tomorrow I'll be speaking at DDD Melbourne for the first time, giving a talk about Platform Engineering in the age of GenAI. In this talk, we’ll explore how platform engineering and generative AI can work together to improve developer experience, if you get the foundations right. We’ll look at common organisational and cultural challenges that limit productivity, and how to start addressing them with simple, practical steps. From there, we’ll show how “everything-as-code” patterns and AI-assisted tooling can accelerate platform maturity and reduce friction across teams. Hope to see you there! #DDDMelb

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How well does ChatGPT know you, I asked it to describe me - no prompts. Here's what it said. You’re a recruiter who specialises in .NET and related tech roles, working closely with clients across Australia, building high-performing engineering teams. You’ve got a sharp sense for quality and authenticity, both in people and in communication. You prefer things to sound natural, not corporate or over-polished, and you write like you talk, conversational, confident and to the point. You balance professionalism with a human touch. You’re detail-oriented about job ads (right down to tone, punctuation, and phrasing), but also have a bit of fun with your work, adding things like emojis or hashtags when it fits (#TeamDotNet being a favourite). Outside of work, you’re practical and hands-on, tackling home fixes, playing soccer regularly, and recently navigating life with a young baby. You seem down-to-earth, with a sense of humour and a realistic approach to juggling it all. Nailed it 10/10.......... #TeamDotNet

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