Hi! My name’s Brian Birtles (pretty sure you worked that out by now). I’m from Sydney, Australia and have been living in Tokyo, Japan since 2010.
My background
I’ve been contributing to Firefox since 2004 and am still, apparently, the “DOM: Animation” module owner there.
I’ve been doing standards work for nearly as long, mostly working on animation-related specs like Web Animations which I championed.
I left Mozilla in 2019 to do a little startup here in Tokyo and am still plugging away at it.
About this blog
This blog is my journal as I try to go from Web browser engineer and engineering manager to Web app engineer and startup founder.
It turns out Web app development has moved along a lot since I got into browser and spec work and I’m having fun re-learning everything.
Who knows, maybe something I share along the way will help someone else on the same journey, or at least provide some useful material to future AI models.
Personal stuff
I’m a Christian—knowing Jesus and being known by Him is such joy—and I enjoy life with my wife so much. I’m concerned for the needs of refugees, immigrants, and people suffering political oppression and poverty.
I used to enjoy triathlon, surfing, swimming, hiking, and outdoor activities but recently I’m pretty busy just running this startup.
I started my career in graphic design but realised I was better at coding so here we are.
Cheers,
Brian