As previously mentioned, I’ve taken a development job in Toowong. The company I work for is, for the moment, called global-roam. (I’m told the "roam" part is derived from the initials of the co-founders of the company, one of whom is my boss.) Anyway, global-roam develops software for participants in the National Energy Market (NEM), and has been doing so since 2000. Some of global-roam’s products are already used by close to, if not more than, 50 percent of the participants in the supply-side of the market.
I’m attempting to learn the ins and outs of the NEM while I work on deSide (demand-side), an application intended for use by large energy consumers who buy their electricity directly from the spot market rather than buying it from an energy retailer (like Energex). Large energy consumers, like smelters and so forth, are finding they can save lots of money by buying energy directly from the spot market if they are willing to take the risk (the price of electricity on the spot market fluctuates like a yo-yo; and I thought the price of petrol was the worst offender!). deSide is also an excellent tool for any company considering the possibility of purchasing energy directly from the market.
In addition to general development, I’ve also been tasked with looking at ways to improve the distributed systems aspects of global-roam’s applications (none of global-roam’s applications is a standalone piece of software; there are a host of distributed computing and networks problems to stay on top of).
So that’s what I’m doing. It’s very different from research (although the dress code appears to be just as informal), but I’m enjoying it.
