Join us in welcoming Toby Bellwood – our new Product Lead!

Hailing from the Isle of Man, and having lived in Canberra, Australia for the last 18 years, Toby has had a wide and diverse career, mostly technology focussed, but with a few interesting tangents (ask him about them sometime!). He’s a long-time map, data and open source nerd, and he’s happiest talking to people about the tech he’s passionate about.

Toby joins amazee.io from the Australian Government Department of Finance, where he was the Tech Lead for GovCMS (the whole-of-Government web platform, built on Drupal, and hosted on Lagoon), and prior to that he was the Lead for the Australian Government’s Open Data platforms. Toby’s been a Lagoon contributor for the last couple of years, and through his role at GovCMS he has collaborated with amazee.io on many of the recent evolutions to the product.  His experience running hundreds of high-profile sites, serving hundreds of millions of pageviews on the Lagoon platform brings a keen enterprise focus, as well as a strong understanding of the needs of a broad range of user communities.

His first real job was working for a family friend for a couple of summers - he ran a small yacht building business, but also manufactured a range of fibreglass items (chimneys, columns, planters and bus stops!). Learning those proper “construction” skills in his teens was a good opportunity to try his hand at a wide range of tasks, skills and challenges (just don’t ask him to weld anything for you!).

He’s had an outward-facing focus for the last few years - so his ability to translate complex concepts and relate to communities, whilst being able to understand the deep technical concepts has served him well, leading to some fairly high-profile positions.

Since falling off his bicycles numerous times (and breaking a total of three elbows), Toby’s become a keen short-distance (i.e. 5km) runner. He used to joke that He once ran 6km because he got lost (true story - https://www.strava.com/activities/963836213). But since then he’s smashed out a couple of longer 7km runs. Toby and his wife have two small kids and a puppy, so he spends a lot of time outdoors - walking, riding bikes and inventing ridiculous games to amuse ourselves.

Toby is also a long-time geography nerd (he can spend hours poring over maps and atlases, learning more about places, planning trips and uncovering a seemingly limitless supply of factoids). He does a *lot* of work-related background reading and research though. Basically, he’s keen to learn everything about what piques his interest, to explore new opportunities, and understand emerging technologies.  He’s happiest when he’s solving problems - he loves getting into the thick of it!  And gets satisfaction from understanding (even if that understanding doesn’t result in resolution!)

Toby has the advantage of having worked closely with amazee.io for the last couple of years so he can’t wait to get fully immersed in the team culture and share the collective passion for amazee.io’s work. 

“It’s such a talented and passionate bunch of people, all helping, sharing and collaborating together!”