// software engineer

Robert
Clarke

Software engineer at bp. First Class Honours in Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence from the University of Nottingham.

Backend Databases Kubernetes Distributed Systems
about()

I'm a software engineer who loves building things — from web applications and databases to electronics projects with Arduino and Raspberry Pi. When I'm not writing code, you'll find me walking, camping, or mountain biking.

I graduated with First Class Honours in Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence from The University of Nottingham, and have been working as a software engineer at bp since completing my internship there.

Robert Clarke on Helvellyn
experience()

Where I've worked

bp

bp

Software Engineer - IDP Tooling

May 2025 - Present
  • Own the observability stack (Grafana, Mimir, Loki, Tempo) for our Internal Developer Platform, giving every team that onboards production-ready monitoring out of the box.
  • Built Grafana Proxy, a reverse proxy with an in-memory user cache, enabling audit logging of admin actions without doubling request volume — unlocking a compliance requirement that was previously unmet.
  • Created a local Kubernetes cluster mirroring production, eliminating dependency on shared infrastructure and significantly speeding up the team's development cycle.
  • Recognised as a go-to engineer for technical guidance across the team. Mentored a junior engineer 1-to-1, helping him go from struggling with the role to thriving in it.
GolangKubernetesAWSGrafanaMimirLokiTempo

Software Engineer - Platform Automations

Sept 2024 - April 2025
  • Built and maintained Lambda functions in Python to automate service lifecycle and configuration across Grafana, FeatureHub and Azure DevOps.
  • Consolidated large amounts of duplicated code into a shared central library, significantly reducing maintenance burden across all automations.
  • Improved code quality and contributor experience by introducing formatting, linting and reproducible dependency management with a uv lockfile.
PythonAWS Lambdauv

Software Engineer - Bazel

Sept 2023 - Aug 2024
  • Delivered Bazel build configuration for projects across the company and maintained Buildbarn for remote build execution, accelerating CI pipelines.
  • Stepped up to lead a struggling Bazel migration for another team. Lead a team of two other graduates and successfully delivered the migration before their 1.0.0 release deadline.
BazelBuildbarnStarlarkPython

Software Engineering Intern

Summer 2022
  • Built a Digital Ethics Impact Assessment application that became a widely-used internal tool, combining web development techniques with citizen development tools.
  • Performance led to a graduate offer at the end of the internship.
Microsoft PowerApps
University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham

Technical Support Assistant

Nov 2021 - June 2022
  • Kept the computer science department's server infrastructure running — maintaining servers, provisioning VMs, and deploying asset management software.
  • Provided hands-on hardware support to staff and PhD students, resolving technical queries across the department.
LinuxVMs
Plasmid Vectors

Plasmid Vectors

Full Stack Developer (Intern)

Summer 2021
  • Built an expandable modular plasmid generator for the Synthetic Biology Research Centre at the University of Nottingham — designing the relational database, DNA generation scripts, and a WordPress plugin and block from scratch.
PHPWordPressMySQLPython
Ink Memorabilia

Ink Memorabilia

Web Developer

Sixth Form
  • Designed and built a full ecommerce website for a client from the ground up — product management, payments via Stripe, and a MySQL-backed storefront.
PHPMySQLStripe
projects()

What I've built

Homelab

Self-hosted infrastructure running Kubernetes on Talos Linux, with ArgoCD for GitOps-driven deployments. Using cert-manager for TLS, external-secrets for secret management, MetalLB for load balancing, and kgateway with the Kubernetes Gateway API for external routing.

Hosting a range of open-source apps including Immich, Wanderer, and Tandoor Recipes, all monitored with Grafana, Prometheus, and Loki.

Kubernetes Talos Linux ArgoCD GitOps Gateway API cert-manager Grafana Prometheus Loki

Wanderer

Contributed to the open-source Wanderer project, adding features to the route printing functionality.

Open Source Contribution Typescript

FPL Stats Site

Web app that calculates and displays statistics about Premier League footballers. Hooks into the Premier League API for live auto-updating data to aid in picking a fantasy team.

Web Dev API

OS from Scratch

Built two basic operating systems from scratch using a mix of assembly and C.

Assembly C Low-level

Neural Network from Scratch

Implemented a neural network from first principles in both Python and Java, without using any ML libraries.

Python Java Machine Learning
life()

Beyond the code

Coast to Coast walk

Coast to Coast

192 miles across England in 12 days. Raised £800+ for Alzheimer's Society.

Teaching in Cambodia

Cambodia

Taught electronics and programming to children using Crumble microcontrollers. Built LED projects, motorised buggies, and an automatic water tank system.

Camping in the snow

Coffee enthusiast. Espresso-based drinks, latte art, and dialling in the perfect shot.

Latte art
Latte art
Latte art