Sheet 05 / About
About
Who I am, how I work, and what I do when I'm not at a keyboard.
I'm Jake Talling, a software engineer with a First-Class MSci in Computer Science from the University of Exeter. Most of my work is backend engineering: production systems, developer tooling and applied AI. I like taking a loosely defined operational problem and turning it into a system that's reliable and easy to reason about.
I started programming at 13 and have since worked across backend engineering, machine learning, computer vision, web development and infrastructure. The part I find most interesting is where software stops being a coding exercise and becomes a real system: data models, deployment, monitoring, failure modes, security, and the decisions that keep a codebase maintainable.
Outside software, I'm an endurance athlete and completed Ironman Malaysia after university. I also enjoy building small tools, self-hosting infrastructure, experimenting with local and frontier AI models, and learning how complex systems work.
This site is where I collect those projects and experiments.
I learn by building. A question turns into a prototype, the prototype turns into a project, and now and then the project turns into something people actually use. I like solid fundamentals, plain explanations and systems that make their failures obvious. I'm also unusually willing to spend a weekend building something just to find out whether it would work.
What I work with
Backend & systems
TypeScript, Python, Java, C / C++, SQL, PostgreSQL, Hono, REST APIs, Data modelling, Financial data modelling, Service integration, Event-driven systems, Server-sent events, Structured logging, Monitoring, Automated auditing.
Web
React, TanStack Router & Query, JavaScript, HTML / CSS, Django, Strapi.
AI & machine learning
PyTorch, scikit-learn, XGBoost, NumPy, Pandas, YOLO, OCR, ByteTrack, RAG, MCP, OpenRouter, Agentic development workflows.
Infrastructure & tooling
Linux, Docker, Git, GitHub, GitHub webhooks, VPS hosting, Coolify, Supabase, Cloudflare, Self-hosting, GPU / CUDA workloads.
Topics I care aboutSystem design · Backend architecture · APIs · Databases & data modelling · Observability · Reliability · Developer tooling · AI-assisted development · Agent architectures · Applied machine learning · Computer vision · Infrastructure & self-hosting · Security boundaries for autonomous tools
Achievements
- 01
Malaysian Computing Challenge — Gold
National programming competition.
- 02
UKMT Junior Mathematical Olympiad — Qualified
Qualified after coming top of my school in the Junior Mathematical Challenge.
- 03
Ironman Malaysia — 9th in age group
Full distance: 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike and 42.2 km run, after finishing university.
Away from the keyboard
226km
- Swim 3.8 km
- Bike 180.2 km
- Run 42.2 km
Ironman Malaysia — 9th in age group
I train for endurance sport, and finished Ironman Malaysia after university, 9th in my age group. I like it for the same reasons I like engineering: big goals only happen when you break them into small, repeatable steps, measuring helps, and there's no substitute for turning up consistently.