About

I’m Ryan. I learn by building.

Reading about something only gets me so far. I understand it properly once I’ve tried to make it or use it, got it a bit wrong, and had to work out why. So I usually have a few projects on the go. Some are software. Some are closer to art: maps, pictures, small ways of telling a story.

I’ve started sharing some of my latest work here. Each project comes with a write-up of how it was made: what I tried, what didn’t work, and how I got around it. If you want to try one out, or make something similar, the code and prompts are usually on GitHub and linked in each write-up.

At work I’m a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Volvo Cars, and that’s where I put what I’ve learnt to use. A lot of the job is understanding a problem properly before solving it: how part of the business works, why a team does things a certain way, what people actually need from a system. I spend time with the people who build, run and depend on our systems, and work with the people leading our product, business and engineering on where those systems go next. I still get into the code when that’s the quickest way to move a problem along.

Nothing here is about my employer’s work. Where something I learnt at work shows up, it’s in general terms.

If any of it is useful, or wrong, I’d like to hear about it. LinkedIn is the easiest way to reach me.