Blake Watkin

I’m a Lead Engineer with almost 10-year tenure in software engineering, shaped by a 20-year-long love of tinkering with software and technology. I’m at my best turning concepts into reality while crafting and guiding the vision toward the most overall value, whether that means leading a team, building solo, or being “one piece of the puzzle.” I bring a calming, light-hearted presence and a strong drive to deliver purposeful value, especially where it benefits the wider community.

Since Apr 2025, I’ve been leading engineering and tech delivery at Dezigner.AI/TechLead, responsible for management of the engineering team, product growth exploration/refinement/delivery, and stakeholder management. I’ve managed up to 6 engineers through task exploration, refinement, and prioritisation, including guidance and pair programming to support professional growth. I also helped grow the app from prototype to production-ready SaaS, including end-to-end integration and publishing an embedded Shopify application on the Shopify app store, and embedded AI tooling throughout the software development lifecycle to improve developer quality of life, speed to delivery, and future product discovery and planning.

Previously at Telstra Purple (Oct 2021 – Apr 2025), I progressed from base level Consultant to Senior Consultant and then Lead Consultant by consistently exceeding expectations. I led and delivered a wide range of projects, including digitising paper-based processes with message-based data integration for the QLD Police Service, building a frontline officer safety app, improving accessibility information sharing for disability communities, and modernising complex applications. Before that, at Michal Hill Jeweller (Aug 2017 – Oct 2021), I advanced from Junior Developer to Senior Developer, contributing to integrations migrating frontline POS and warehouse processes into Microsoft D365, integrating management product data across systems, enhancing legacy VB6, and building an app for support workers to monitor and resolve known transient errors in sales integration data.