Senior Software Engineer | Fintech Innovation Engineer | Creator of ExtractPDF4J
I build production-grade fintech and document intelligence systems with a strong foundation in Java, Spring Boot, distributed backend services, and enterprise workflow design.
I currently work in the Innovation team at Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), where I help design and deliver solutions that improve internal banking journeys, financial data usability, and digital customer support workflows.
Alongside my enterprise work, I’m the creator of ExtractPDF4J — a Java-first PDF table extraction library built to handle the messy reality of real-world documents, including complex layouts, inconsistent tables, and scanned PDFs.
My core focus is simple: solve difficult real-world problems with robust engineering.
- 🔭 Currently building: innovation-led banking and document-processing solutions
- 🌱 Exploring: AI-assisted product engineering, document intelligence, and fintech innovation
- 📝 Writing on: technical engineering, PDF extraction, enterprise architecture, and practical innovation
I specialize in systems where business complexity and technical complexity meet:
- fintech workflows
- open banking and transaction-oriented systems
- document extraction and structured data transformation
- enterprise APIs and orchestration
- innovation-led engineering
- AI-assisted product thinking
I enjoy working on problems that are often underestimated in design conversations but critical in production — especially where reliability, accuracy, and maintainability matter.
ExtractPDF4J is a Java-first PDF table extraction library built for real enterprise use cases.
It was created to address a practical challenge: most PDF extraction approaches work only until they face real production documents. In banking and enterprise systems, documents are often inconsistent, partially scanned, poorly aligned, or structurally irregular. ExtractPDF4J is built with that reality in mind.
- Handles text-based and scanned PDFs
- Supports stream, lattice, OCR-assisted, and hybrid-style extraction approaches
- Designed for enterprise reliability and extensibility
- Built from experience solving real document-processing problems in regulated environments
This project reflects how I like to build:
- practical over theoretical
- production-oriented over demo-oriented
- reusable, maintainable, and engineering-led
At BNZ, my work focuses on designing and supporting innovation initiatives that improve how financial data and digital workflows are used in practice.
This includes work across:
- internal banker-facing journeys
- structured financial data handling
- service orchestration
- digital process improvement
- platform-style thinking for scalable solutions
My banking experience has shaped how I engineer systems:
- reliability matters
- traceability matters
- usability matters
- architecture must survive real operational conditions
- 💼 12+ years in software engineering
- 🏦 Strong experience in banking and enterprise technology
- ⚙️ Deep background in Java backend engineering
- 📄 Creator and maintainer of ExtractPDF4J
- 🚀 Interested in practical AI, workflow automation, and product innovation
- 🤝 Active in mentoring, technical writing, and knowledge sharing
Core Engineering
Java, Spring Boot, REST APIs, Microservices
Data & Integration
SQL, Kafka, API Integration, Event-Driven Patterns
Cloud & Platforms
AWS
Document Intelligence
PDF Parsing, OCR-Assisted Extraction, Table Detection, Structured Data Normalization
Full-Stack
React, JavaScript, End-to-End Application Development
I actively share ideas and lessons from real engineering work through writing, speaking, and community contributions.
- Why PDF Table Extraction Fails in Production—and What Banks Need to Do About It — A practical deep dive into why PDF extraction breaks in real banking systems, and why hybrid parsing, OCR, validation, and confidence scoring are essential for production reliability.
- Why Should Python Have All the Fun? Meet My New Java Library: ExtractPDF4J — An introduction to ExtractPDF4J and the motivation behind building a Java-first PDF table extraction library for real-world enterprise use.
- How I Tamed a Wild AI to Answer Banking Questions Without Making Things Up: A Spring Boot + OpenAI Story — A practical article on building a grounded AI-powered banking assistant using Spring Boot and OpenAI while reducing hallucinations.
- SQL Saturday Wellington — speaker / contributor
- Wellington Code Camp — speaker / contributor
- Technical mentoring and knowledge sharing through engineering communities
This part of my work reflects something I value deeply: sharing practical lessons that help other engineers build better systems.
- Built a Java-first open-source library to solve complex PDF extraction challenges
- Worked on innovation-driven engineering in a major banking environment
- Designed solutions around financial workflows, structured data, and system integration
- Passionate about turning difficult operational problems into maintainable products
I care about:
- building tools that are genuinely useful
- solving hard production problems well
- creating reusable engineering assets
- contributing through writing, mentoring, and open source
- combining strong fundamentals with innovation
On this profile, you’ll find:
- open-source engineering projects
- backend and platform-oriented work
- practical problem-solving
- ideas shaped by real enterprise challenges
Thanks for stopping by.