About

I’m Phil Carroll-O’Kane; a technical support engineer, systems thinker, and writer. Here is my current cv.

I value customer-centric design and engineering, focusing on systems and APIs, and on understanding how things behave in production; and how to resolve them when they fail.

Background

I’ve spent my career in technical support and operations roles across SaaS, hosting, and infrastructure.

My work has involved:

• Investigating production issues across APIs, networks and backend systems
• Supporting customers through complex technical problems
• Colaborating with teams and engineers at all levels to resolve technical issues
• Improving processes using structured approaches like ITIL and PRINCE2

Over time, I’ve developed a strong focus on debugging, systems thinking, and clear communication.

What I’m Focused On

I’m focused on delivering customer-centric engineering through the combination of design, development, tooling, and technical support.

• Building systems and tools that improve how customers interact with APIs
• Taking ownership of issues from first report through to resolution
• Communicating clearly and effectively throughout the lifecycle of a problem

What I’m Targeting

I’m targeting roles in:

• Technical Support Engineering
• Application / Production Support
• Customer Engineering
• Technical Account Management (API / SaaS focused)

Particularly in companies where:

• APIs are core to the product
• Reliability and observability matter
• Support engineers operate close to engineering, with a strong focus on developing my skills and working closely with those around me.

Key Strengths

APIs

Strong understanding of how APIs behave in real systems. Request/response flows, authentication, and failure modes.

Debugging

A structured approach to diagnosing issues across layers:

• DNS
• TLS
• HTTP
• Application-level errors
• Log analysis

Customer-Facing Engineering

Comfortable working directly with customers to:

• Understand problems clearly
• communicate technical issues simply
• drive issues through to resolution

How I Think

I approach problems by:

• narrowing the search space
• forming and testing hypotheses
• using logs and data to guide decisions

Most issues are not random — they are explainable with the right level of visibility.

Outside of Work

I write about systems, debugging, and support engineering to clarify my thinking and share practical approaches.

I develop my skills through continuous learning, teaching, and by approaching problems with fresh perspective.

Contact

You can reach me via:

• Email: phil@carrollokane.com
• GitHub: https://github.com/philcodex