I am Nexus

Hi, I am Nexus! Much like this site's domain and title suggests.

This website is mainly for prospective professional relations - if you're here to know me in a friendly capacity, consider visiting my other site, timedout.uk.

Otherwise, nice to have you! Enjoy your stay, get comfy, I'll go make you a cuppa.

Contact

There are several ways to contact me, but generally I prefer instant messaging over email, mainly because email gets a lot of spam, and your message may be missed. Below are a list of contact points you can reach me at:

I am also on Linkedin, however their website throws a 500 Internal Server Error at me whenever I log in, so am I really there?
Any other presence you find under my name is likely a personal account and should not be treated as a point of contact.

About Me

(& experience)

I'm a 19 year old (unless I forgot to update the site) computer tinkerer, tinkering all things computer. I've been playing with technology ever since I got given a broken phone as a kid, and have gone on to study computer science, digital services, and cyber security & digital forensics academically. In my free time I write and contribute to libre open-source projects, and work with several high-profile projects in the Matrix ecosystem. Previous notable works include several websites, some PyPi packages, and a few popular Discord chatbots. I also enjoy a good game from time to time to catch a break though!


Knowledge Areas

I am very familiar with software engineering, computer networking, and systems management. Some other things that I use in my day to day life are DevOps and SysOps, and manage my own homelab environment using Proxmox Virtual Environment. The website you're viewing right now was written using Visual Studio Code, versioned with the Git source control management, stored on the self-hosted git forge "Forgejo" (see footer), and deployed using CI/CD securely to a cloud edge VPS.

A deeper dive into specific knowledge areas and my history in them

Software Engineering

I am knowledgeable in many programming languages, including Python (3.6 and above), JavaScript & TypeScript, and Golang. I also spend a lot of time with Rust, and have dabbled in the likes of Java, and the C-family of languages (C, C++, and C#).

My workflows generally involve the use of JetBrains IDEs, using Visual Studio Code where more ideal, and things like Docker for containerised deployment.

Networking

I haven't done much practical professional-level networking, however did study it in college. I used things like Cisco switches and iOS to manage ACLs and VLANs, with Cisco Packet Tracer for simulating networks. I also used Extreme Networks access points to run high-speed wireless networking.

I manage my home network, making use of OPNsense (previously OpenWRT) for routing, using routers and access points of many brands. My current home network consists of three generic WiFi-routers using OpenWRT as access points, chained together over ethernet, hooked into a central switch, with routing being provided by an old micro form-factor optiplex.


*Ops

I don't really like the term "[thingy]ops", but it got your attention didn't it.

I have previously worked in software and am familiar with the cultures and frameworks around devops. Most of my work, aside from writing the code, is handled by automations - CI lints my commits, compiles per-commit artefacts, merges eligible dependency updates automatically, builds and pushes container images, sometimes it even does deployments for me!
I also make use of self-hosted monitoring programs, such as Uptime Kuma and Grafana to receive notifications and view live metrics.

I don't have any formal accreditation in sysops, however have been running my own homelab and a plethora of self-hosted services since my early teens. Currently I administrate a homelab (virtual environment), and two virtual private servers in the cloud. I have historically managed more, but that's not interesting. I also provide assistance with the servers of some close friends, including remote management.
I don't typically refer to sysops by the modern definition, which is seemingly just "can you use AWS". I actually manage actual systems by hand, I don't just rely on Amazon sorting it all for me and pretending I've achieved something. Although I can if you need me to.