The degrees and certificates — and the lessons no syllabus could give me.
Kingston University London · Delivered with ESOFT Metro Campus, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Awarded with Merit
SLIIT · Kurunegala & Kandy centres, Sri Lanka
CGPA 3.92 / 4.00
Completed the Higher Diploma level of the programme (years 1–2, 68 credits), then joined Pearson as a software engineer.
Best Tech for Good Software Innovation or Product — first place at both national (all-island) and Western Province level, for Oversight, the AI-powered mini-grid management platform (June 2024).
May 2024 · Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland, under the EU Horizon 2020 RESPONSE project. Team of eight, competing remotely, with an AI-powered energy management system for residential solar (PV) curtailment and energy optimisation.
All 4 semesters at SLIIT, for exceptional academic performance.
Awarded for all semesters attended at SLIIT.
🧠 The education that didn’t come with a certificate
My most valuable education didn't come with a certificate. I completed the Higher Diploma level of a full-scholarship degree, moved into industry, led engineering at a startup as Director / VP of Software Engineering, built systems people actually depend on — and then went back for a Master's. University gave me foundations; the real world gave me judgement. This page keeps both, because the lessons that shaped me most were learned while shipping, leading, and occasionally breaking things in production.
Tutorials never stick until I've shipped something real with the idea. I reach for a small, throwaway project before I trust a new tool or pattern — the bugs teach me what the docs can't.
I'd rather understand why a pattern exists than memorise how to apply it. Knowing the underlying problem lets me bend the rules safely when reality doesn't match the textbook.
Mentoring 20+ engineers forced me to articulate things I only half-understood. If I can't explain it simply at a code review, I don't really know it yet.
Nothing sharpens you like owning something at 2am. Real load, real users, and real failures taught me more about resilient design than any course on it.
What years of shipping production systems, modernizing legacy code, and wiring hardware to the cloud actually taught me.
Migrating modules from Java 8 to 17 taught me that old code encodes hard-won decisions. The win wasn't rewriting it — it was modernising safely without losing the knowledge baked into it.
↳ Cambio Software · Associate Tech Lead
Building LMS, HIMS and recruitment platforms with DDD and SOLID felt slower up front. Six months in, every one of those boundaries paid off when requirements changed — which they always did.
↳ Syntax Genie · Director / VP of Software Engineering
Wiring inverters, PLCs and ESP firmware into Azure IoT Hub over MQTT taught me to design for flaky networks and partial failure from day one. The edge has no 'retry later' button.
↳ Oversight Mini-Grid Platform · Project & Technical Lead
Driving GitHub Copilot adoption across teams showed me the gains come from engineers who already know what 'good' looks like. AI multiplies judgement — it can't replace it.
↳ Cambio Software · AI Initiative
Running engineering at a startup, leading teams, and taking the long way round taught me things no exam ever tested.
Running engineering at a startup, I learned the architecture I cared about most was the team's. Hiring, mentoring and setting standards moved the needle far more than any framework choice.
↳ Syntax Genie · Director / VP of Software Engineering
The promotion to Tech Lead made it official: translating between business goals and technical reality — in both directions, honestly — matters more than the code I personally write.
↳ Cambio Software · Associate Tech Lead
Moving into industry after the Higher Diploma level of a full-scholarship degree, then returning for a Master's, taught me to trust evidence over expectations. Knowing why I'm doing something beats following the default route.
↳ Personal · The long way round
Proposing and single-handedly shipping a company-wide Jenkins build tool nobody asked for taught me that the highest-leverage work often starts with 'I'll just fix this myself'.
↳ Cambio Software · Self-initiated
Curious how this shows up in real work? Take a look at what I’ve built.
