Introducing Myself

My name is Menno Finlay-Smits and I start today as the Lead Developer and Project Manager for the Cacophony Project. We've got a real chance at solving the problem of invasive predators in New Zealand and I'm really excited to be part of the effort.

A little about me... I've been a professional developer for over 20 years now and have worked in a wide range of areas including automated vehicle guidance, data mining, desktop applications, trading systems, and distributed systems. I've mostly worked with the Linux operating system throughout my career (which is what we use for the Cacophony Project too). My preferred programming languages are Python and Go but I also have experience with JavaScript, C, C# and others. I've been an avid consumer, contributor and author of open source software and have a good grasp of how the open source software world works.

My role has three major aspects:

1. Providing technical leadership and direction, especially in terms of the software parts of the project.

2. Working with the rest of the team to develop and implement the field and server-side systems.

3. Encourage and coordinate external contributions of all kinds. The project is completely open and anyone is able to contribute. Look out for suggestions of how to contribute to the project on the website soon. I've already been getting up to speed with Grant and Cam over the last few weeks and am hitting the ground running today. I look forward to getting to know our key partners and contributors soon.