Welcome! I’m Damien, an AWS Consultant at Steamhaus in Manchester, UK. With over a decade of experience in cloud and data systems, I help teams build, automate, and modernise their cloud and data solutions on AWS.
Accolades:
- Numerous certifications
- AWS Community Builder: 2025 | 2026
- 2026 AWS New Voices Alumni
- 2023 New Stars Of Data Alumni
Click the button below for links to contact, socials, projects and sessions:
Technology
I started amazonwebshark in 2021 to help myself understand new topics, establish points of reference for the future, and combat my imposter syndrome when it tries to take hold. Since then, I’ve written numerous posts covering a variety of categories.
Over time, I’ve become increasingly interested in how technical knowledge is communicated. Much of my thinking has been shaped by the Diátaxis framework and the idea that tutorials, how-to guides, explanations and reference material serve different purposes.
I try to reflect that in my writing here. Some posts are step-by-step walkthroughs, some are explorations of ideas, and others are simply records of experiments, lessons learned, or things I found interesting while building.
Find out more on my Blog and Projects pages.
Community
Community has become an increasingly important part of my professional life. Alongside my day-to-day engineering work, I am an AWS Community Builder in the Data category and the leader of AWS User Group Lancashire. I speak at a range of events from podcasts and panels to user groups and conferences, sharing personal, professional and practical insights on a range of topics.
I’m particularly focused on making technical topics easier to understand and sharing the practical realities behind projects, including the challenges that often arise.
Through blogging, talks, panels, and community events, I’ve met some genuinely brilliant people and learned far more than I could have on my own.
Find out more on my Speaking and Community pages.
Leisure
I have an interest in retro computing going back to 1991 when the family’s Amiga 500+ arrived at Christmas. I started out as a gamer and ended up following tutorials about AMOS and Blitz BASIC to make some games of my own! These days, I still enjoy tinkering with them and pushing them to their modern-day limits.
Besides technology, I enjoy running on the roads, towpaths, and dirt tracks of South Manchester. I’ve also been a fan of dance music since the 2000s and an Indie music fan prior to that. I enjoy time in the garden, taking on the various seasonal jobs. I like the odd autobiography and psychology book, and I’m also Dog Dad to Havoc, the Belgian Malinois:
