Hi, I'm Kaustubh.
Business analyst · tinkerer · Sydney
I can't leave a slow, manual, repetitive task alone. At work that means untangling processes until they make sense. At home it means a server cupboard, a drawer full of microcontrollers, and a house that's probably more automated than it needs to be.
Same instinct, two outlets.
By day
Making work make sense
I'm a business analyst. I map how things are done today, work out how they should be done, and get it written down so it sticks. Sometimes that ends in a new system. Often it ends in a simpler process and a well-built SharePoint list — and when it's that kind of fix, I build it myself.
Process optimisation
As-is and to-be mapping, finding the waste, then work instructions and procedures people actually follow.
Requirements & people
Workshops that get to what people really need, and getting different teams to agree on it.
Right-sized fixes
SharePoint, Excel and VBA, Power Apps and Power Automate — whatever's simplest that works.
After hours
Things I've tinkered with
A home server, a lot of Home Assistant, and the occasional burnt fingertip.
My solar inverter thinks it's phoning home
It's actually talking to a little proxy on my server, which feeds a database and some very satisfying graphs.
The air-cons no longer need the cloud
A thumb-sized ESP32 on the service port, and they're controlled entirely locally.
Five cameras, one tiny AI chip
Local person and car detection. Along the way I found and fixed a timestamp bug that was breaking two of them.
Remote access, rebuilt three times
Cloudflare Tunnels, then Tailscale, now my own gateway. Each time for a reason that seemed very important at the time.
I moved off Google Maps Timeline
Location history now lives on my own server, fed live from Home Assistant.
The house sends me a morning briefing
Weather, what's on, what broke overnight. Alerts when it matters, silence when it doesn't.
A fan controller with more maths than necessary
ESP32, a temperature probe, PID control and a little touchscreen, to keep a cabinet cool and quiet.
I copied every button on a remote
All 17 of them, then built an IR blaster so the house can press them instead.