Head of Marketing at 10Duke.
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Our Behind the License series continues, and this time we’re heading to the other side of the world. We’re turning our focus to 10Duke’s New Zealand office to meet Hamish Smith, Senior Software Architect and Team Leader, who leads the team there. Hamish shares how a degree in Ecology led him into software, what keeps him busy at 10Duke, and the licensing trends he’s seeing from customers.
Hi Hamish, could you share a little about what your role entails here at 10Duke?
I am lucky to have a role that encompasses a variety of different work. It includes supporting and helping the team in New Zealand, developing and supporting users of our SDKs for Enterprise and Scale, supporting our customers as part of the on-call team, and working on new features and maintenance in product development.
Although you now live in New Zealand, you hold a BSc in Ecology from the University of East Anglia in the UK. How was your career journey - from studying how living organisms interact with each other and their physical environments - to software architecture?
I have always been interested in both the natural world and computing. My earliest memory of programming is typing in BASIC code for games from listings in magazines on an Acorn BBC Model B microcomputer.
That meant that when I had the opportunity in my studies at UEA to work with simulation modelling that appealed to me a great deal. It combined the two interests. As part of my degree I developed models in QuickBASIC and TurboC.
After graduating I found a job as a Junior Programmer and Research Assistant at the University of Hertfordshire. There I worked on an expert system designed to help farmers reduce the environmental impacts of their activities.
That was during the late 1990s and there was something called the dotcom boom happening. There were a lot more software jobs than there were qualified people to do them.
I applied for a job at Xerox Welwyn Software Centre, an extremely kind (and/or brave!) manager there decided that my limited experience and obvious enthusiasm were worth taking a risk on (thanks Ian!).
From that point on, software became the stronger of my interests and I have been lucky to work with a lot of very smart people who I have learned from over the years.
I have often reflected that Ecology is like the “systems” view of Biology. Looking at interactions and relationships, zooming out to look at the big picture. I think that has helped me with the way I think about software systems.
What brought you to 10Duke and what are you working on at the moment?
I worked with 10Duke on a project for a previous employer implementing identity based licensing for a suite of software products, using the 10Duke platform.
The strength, robustness and flexibility of the product impressed me almost as much as the intelligence, patience, and good humour of the people I met from 10Duke.
Some years later my path crossed with 10Duke again and the opportunity to work for the company, building a team in New Zealand, came about.
What are the typical kind of challenges you encounter when designing/building software for 10Duke?
I feel like we spend a lot of our mental energy trying to manage complexity. We work with some inherently complex protocols and a problem domain that is filled with concepts unfamiliar to a lot of developers.
Making the complex as simple as possible is what we strive for. That can take quite a bit of thinking.
What are the sorts of trends you're seeing in terms of what customers need for better software licensing and monetisation?
We continue to see new and interesting platforms and ways of delivering software. The number of different ways our customers create value and deliver it to their customers continually amazes me. We are lucky to work with some amazing and truly innovative companies.
We are at a point where there is renewed interest in usage based licensing models, tracking usage and billing based on how much the customer has used. I think this will continue as tracking compute or tokens is a hot topic.
Where/who do you get inspiration from to help you in your role?
Throughout my career I have had the privilege of working with a lot of smart and talented people. The team at 10Duke are a fantastic example of this. My colleagues in Europe and New Zealand are a source of inspiration, support and good humour that I am very lucky to enjoy.
What are 3 things you love outside of work?
That’s easy. The top three things I love outside of work would be my three teenage children.
We live on a lifestyle block outside of Ōtautahi (Christchurch) with a view of Whakaraupō (Lyttelton Harbour) and surrounded by the Port Hills. I love the place - the trees, the birds, the space to listen and to hear yourself think.
It is a multi-generational household with my partner, my children, two grandmothers and myself (not to mention the dog, cat, sheep, chickens, and the tiger worms in the septic tank - big family).
The kids keep me busy, they have a variety of interests that are well outside of my areas of expertise so I am learning with them about target shooting, psychology, art, and philosophy to name a few subjects.
Thanks for your time Hamish!
