Previous Committee Members

Mark is a former-sysadmin-turned-developer with a lifelong interest in tech, science and maths. He started his Ruby journey in 2008 with Rails. These days, he uses Ruby and a handful of other languages - but Ruby is his staple language, because of both the language itself and the community around it. He is also keen to help the tech industry be a better and more inclusive place, particularly for people with disabilities.

Outside of tech, he watches more TV than is probably healthy, manages to be a halfway-decent home cook, and is keen to do more travelling.

Also Perth Ruby Meetup co-organiser.

Claire is relatively new to Ruby development having recently completed a full stack web development bootcamp. She's been working in Tech for the last 5 years in the Support and Customer Experience space and decided to make the move to development because building things is fun 😎

Outside of coding she loves getting out into nature, playing music and bouldering.

Sophie is a Ruby engineer hailing from the beautiful Macedon Ranges in Victoria. She brings her passion and expertise to the tech community as the organiser for Rails Girls Melbourne. Her journey into tech began in 2016, after a fulfilling career in the beauty industry, and she hasn't looked back since. Sophie's dedication to coding is matched only by her commitment to empowering women in technology.

When she's not immersed in code, Sophie loves to connect with nature, spend quality time with her family, and unleash her creativity through paper crafting.

A baker in a former life Ben had done a bit of Game modding in his spare time when he decided to do some more formal training in 2022, after discovering Ruby he hasn't looked back.

He loves of Ruby, Boardgames and a good cup of Tea.

Mat is a Ruby Developer based in Sydney. When he's not trying to remember the Rails Migration syntax, you can find him encouraging his plants to grow, playing ultimate frisbee or co-organizing @rorosyd

Late last millenium Sharon completed a computer degree because her mum, in the mid-80s, said, “There is a future in computers.” Mum may have been right but Sharon went for a wander through academia and the arts ending up as a Film Projectionist. When Sharon was replaced by a digital projector, she took irony firmly in hand and decided, in June 2016, to become a Developer.

Kieran is a passionate Ruby Developer from Adelaide after discovering it 2011.

In his spare time Kieran enjoys making home-made pizza, playing board games and snowboarding around the world.

Previously: President/Vice President/General Member of the Ruby AU committee, co-organiser of RubyConf AU 2019, RailsCamps 22 and 24, and the Melbourne Ruby meetup, technical recruiter at Lookahead, Automattic, and elsewhere. Currently: Talent acquisition manager at Linktree.

Writer of Rails Guides, Rails 4 in Action, Super Hero and Answerer of Stack Overflow Questions. Works at Culture Amp as the Junior Engineering Program Lead. Continuously mistaken for Ryan Bates.

@WWCodeMelbourne Co-Organiser
@NodeGirlsPerth Organizer
@rubyaustralia secretary
@witqld ICT Committee Member
Lead Talent Acquisition Manager @Readify

Pat is a gelato connoisseur, pancake master, and occasional events organiser (including RubyConf AU, Rails Camps, and Trampoline). Mostly, though, he is a contracting Ruby developer based in Melbourne, and most recently has led the development efforts at Limbr, a social enterprise focused on mental health.

Designer who codes. Passionate about music, cleantech and the open web.

Caroline left academia for a career in tech in 2017 and is currently a Software Engineer at Culture Amp. Outside of work you'll most likely find her playing boardgames, losing her voice in a karaoke booth, or visiting refugees in detention.

Cameo is a Junior Developer at MYOB. She moved into a career in technology in early 2018 after six years of running dog sled tours and working in retail. When she's not coding you'll find her playing boardgames or entering sled dog races with her two Siberian Huskies.

Longtime tech enthusiast - and armed with an emoji for every occasion. With a love of expressive language he naturally fell for Ruby. When away from the modern he can be found enjoying the traditional; small-batch coffee ☕ rear-wheel drive 🏎️ and longbow archery 🏹.

Laughing, learning, coding and growing these are a few of my favourite things. Aaaaaand...working as a Technical Recruiter at Lookahead Search.

Late last millenium Sharon completed a computer degree because her mum, in the mid-80s, said, “There is a future in computers.” Mum may have been right but Sharon went for a wander through academia and the arts ending up as a Film Projectionist. When Sharon was replaced by a digital projector, she took irony firmly in hand and decided, in June 2016, to become a Developer. Sharon now works at Envato.

After a few years as a park ranger and then a few more as a high school teacher, Caitlin has now made the transition into tech. She is currently an intern with Two Red Kites in Brisbane and recently started the Brisbane Tech Newbies meet up group. When she’s not coding you will probably find her watching videos of puppies on youtube and eating as many snacks as she can find.

Toby was a developer and dev manager for nine years before moving into recruitment. These days he hires software engineers for Automattic, and is also the co-organiser of the Melbourne Ruby meetup. In his spare time he is a gadget hoarder, mac & cheese enthusiast and dad.

Nick is a Melbourne Junior Ruby Dev who is passionate about Community Media and how technology is changing what it is to be human. He formerly hosted "The Year in Geek", a radio show interviewing 24 Geeks over a marathon 24 hours on topics ranging from Anime, Behavioural Economics and Formula One.

Rachelle is an active member of BrisRuby, one half of Rails Girls BNE, and runs the Ruby on Rails Installfests as part of her role as Community Manager for reinteractive. She is excited to be on the committee of Ruby Australia so that she can further serve the community.

Lachlan went to Sydney’s first Ruby on Rails meet up in 2006 and has been an active member of the Australian Ruby community ever since. He has been an engineering manager, a Rubyist, an ecosystem strategist, a startup mentor, a full-time JavaScripter, an IPTV developer, a front-end developer, and a web standards professional. Now he works at Blackmill, a consultancy focused on helping technology organisations improve their software engineering practices.

A junior developer and community evangelist, Lauren is a seasoned organiser of Ruby events both large and small. After a long while contributing to the community in her home town of Adelaide, she now resides in Melbourne and flounders around with code at Culture Amp. She’s passionate about fostering diversity and growth in the Ruby community and is excited to be leading the committee in those pursuits.

In her spare time, Lauren likes to play boardgames and watch awkward sitcoms. She will love you forever if you bring her a coffee on a long day (or any day).

Ana has been a member of the tech community for a number of years. Her Rails journey started in 2013 at Rails Girls Brisbane. She moved to Melbourne in 2014 to work with Marketplacer. Ana is passionate about code, though somewhat of a pedant. She loves Ruby, and the community around it. Ana may be found at camps or meetups, or hiding at home with her cats.

Tom is a developer, father of twins and dad joke connoisseur. He regularly speaks at BrisRuby and is passionate about mentoring. He works for tworedkites in Brisbane.

Len has been a part of the Sydney Ruby community for several years. He organised Rails Camp 17 at Broken Bay north of Sydney and recently moved to Melbourne to take up a Tech Lead position with REA. He enjoys helping new people in the Ruby community and is working to make it a fun and welcoming place for all.

Software Developer. Rails Camp enthusiast. Co-organiser of Rubyburgers Adelaide.

Kylie Gusset is a creative who started working with code when the internet was powered by website under construction gifs. After spending time in textiles, she is transitioning back to development, and is passionate about diversity in tech.

Mel is an internet enthusiast and polyglot amateur. She dreams of being a software developer, but at the moment is content helping the open source community continue to be a supportive, inclusive and welcoming place for everyone. Mel was on the organising team for Ruby Conf 2015, volunteers her time to help at numerous awesome tech conferences, and co-organises a Melbourne Meetup called Code Kuma. She works at Lookahead in Melbourne.

Rebecca has been working with Ruby and Rails since making a fateful New Years Resolution to learn them at the end of 2010. She writes a lot, has Opinions about many things, and works for reinteractive from sunny Perth.

Rob fell in love with Ruby in 2011 after fighting with PHP for a number of years. He loves bending rails to his will, and is terrible at front-end design - or at least that's what designers say. He works at Local Directories on the fabulous Gold Coast.

In her previous career, Amanda spent many years in the education space harnessing technology to improve education. Realising her heart had always been in programming she took a leap and set out to make the jump permanently. Along the way she fell in love with the Ruby community and is now working as a Junior Ruby Developer for Envato in Melbourne.

Angus is the Software Engineering manager at UrbisPro. As a land surveyor and software engineer Angus possesses the unique attributes of domain knowledge, skills and passion mixed with pioneering entrepreneurship. He has a passion for DevOps and has been using ruby for more years than he cares to recall.

After growing up in Sweden, Sebastian escaped to the US in 2007 and moved down under in 2009. He now lives in Melbourne with his partner and two fur children, and works as a development manager at Envato. He is also a certified baseball nut. Having organised Rails Camp X, he is excited to continue working with the Australian Ruby community.

Mikel has been involved with Ruby since 2007 after deciding to learn ruby by building the mail gem. Since then he founded reinteractive in 2010 and co-founded Flood.IO in 2013. Mikel enjoys his RC Helicopter flying and Formula1, both of which involve expensive things going fast into walls at odd angles.

Keith (also known as "Magic Keith") is a developer from Adelaide living in Perth, Western Australia. He is the founder of the Continuous Integration service Buildkite.

In Keith's spare time, he watches many scary movies, and wins Magic Competitions.

Luke is a developer from New Zealand who now lives in Melbourne, writing Ruby on Rails code at Envato to help improve their digital Marketplaces. His interests include good food (such as bacon), cycling, video games and sword fighting.

A lawyer with a burning ambition to be a dev, Mel is new to the world of both coding and Ruby. Cat herder, burner, unionist and enjoyer of wine.

Pat is a gelato connoisseur, pancake master, and occasional events organiser (including RubyConf AU, Rails Camps, and Trampoline). Mostly, though, he is a contracting Ruby developer based in Melbourne, and most recently has led the development efforts at Limbr, a social enterprise focused on mental health.

Jason met Ruby in late 2004, fell in love with its elegance, and met Rails not long after. He lives in Lismore and likes Rails Camp T's, game development and underscores.

Geek since birth. Rubyist & DevOp. Lover. Idealist. Proud creator of http://faxitforme.com (RailsRumble2012)

Formerly at realestate.com.au, Luke is now helping build a startup called Pop!

Ruby / Javascript / Java Agilist. Founder of Canoniq. Apple tragic. Hack Night organiser. Bon vivant. Enthusiast. Coffee lover. Proud father.

Dylan is a Ruby developer evangelist who thinks that computers will save the world - He's just not sure what from. He loves automating boring stuff, making software things and video games. He still can't fly.

Elle is a full stack web developer with more than ten years experience, and a unique background that bridges the gap between the front- and back-end. She has been working with Ruby and Rails since 2007 and as a full time Rails developer since 2009.

Bicycle, book, and booze enthusiast. Rubyist. Co-founder of http://goodfil.ms.

Former development team lead for Envato across their Marketplace products, John has been a long time member of the Australian Ruby community and has helped organise a couple of the Melbourne Rails Camps.

Martin discovered Ruby in 2003 and his affair with it continues to this day. When not riding his bike he can be found as Team Lead at Blake eLearning, a company dedicated to helping children improve their literacy and numeracy skills.

Rails Developer. Reformed Freelancer. Mashing keyboards until ruby comes out for @envato.

A native of Canada, David now lives in Melbourne and is an active member of the local Ruby community. He enjoys both attending and speaking at Ruby-related events, having presented talks at RailsConf Europe 2006 in London, and at RubyConf 2008 in Orlando.

David is part of the development team behind the Envato marketplaces, building and maintaining one of the longest-running public Ruby on Rails-based apps in Australia.

A long-time participant, former convener of and occasional presenter at Sydney Ruby meetups, Keith led the organisation of Rails Camp 9 at Lake Ainsworth in 2011 and co-organised the inaugural RubyConf AU in Melbourne in 2013. He runs Cockatoo Software.

Away from computers, he loves sport, especially cricket, golf and Aussie Rules. And single malt whisky.

Richie is a passionate Ruby Developer who recently moved to Adelaide but still moonlights in Melbourne.

A member of Inspire 9 CoWorking and co-founder of AngelCube.com Melbourne's first startup venture accelerator, he is currently working on his own startup, NakedInsights an automation tool for Financial Advisers, and has a passion for helping people bring projects to reality.

Dan is CEO of Tech Startup, Codehire and has been working with Rails since 2006. He is actively involved in Adelaide.rb and the Ruby community at large. Dan is passionate about promoting software and web development as a career choice for younger people and about open source software in business.

Nigel has a strong community spirit and is heavily involved organising Brisbane's Ruby, Javascript and WorkAtJelly meetups as well as mentoring friends and ex-colleagues in their business ventures.

He is proud to be part of the Ruby Australia Association and is excited how it will make Ruby more visible to the wider community and to the Enterprise.