Paul Fawkesley

About me. I am...

A programmer and engineer. I found coding aged 10 and it shaped my life. I’m hooked on making machines do stuff for me. I studied engineering and unsurprisingly chose robots for my masters. I automate to free up time for things that matter. Programming is my flow state.

A hands-on Dad to a curious, energetic five year old. I work part time so I can spend afternoons with her. We whizz around on our electric cargo bike, meander in nature and tinker with gardening, crafts and robotics.

A climate activist. I’ve invested a lot into decarbonising our home and our lives. I eat mostly plants and travel mostly by bike and train (and I’ve never been healthier). I’ve been arrested with Just Stop Oil and I support local climate activists.

A business owner, running Treasure Hunt Tours for six years with my great friend Ian. Our business is customer-obsessed and highly automated. We prioritise building a company we love over growth for its own sake.

A student of Stoicism and Buddhism. I’ve learned that thoughts and feelings can be shaped and tuned. That anger’s never useful. That nothing’s forever. I’m thoughtful about how I spend time and attention. I’m actively ignorant about fashion, social media, daily news and TV. I have time for thinking, making, reading, playing and being with friends and family.

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🛠️ Work & projects

By day I'm building treasure hunt games with my good friend Ian.

I've built PGP software for teams and for several years I ran Expirybot, a reminder service to make life easier for PGP users.

I've built software for printing machines and high-speed network devices, scraped and analysed data for ScraperWiki, Shelter and Global Witness, built backends for Government Digital Service, created the whole stack for Sea Level Research and kicked off the NHS Digital Transformation.

I have a first class MEng degree in Engineering (Digital Communications) from Durham University.

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