G’day Sandy, let’s start with the question on everyone’s mind. Are you related to Inlight co-founder Tony, or is this one big coincidence?

Not that I am aware of but we haven’t had a chance to go through our family trees or taken a DNA test yet so we will have to see. I haven’t met that many Milnes outside my family or Scotland (where there are a lot) so I’m glad that they will be well represented at Inlight.

Looks like ancestry.com is going to get a work out. Moving on, how did you find out about us here at Inlight?

I think I was casually looking through LinkedIn or maybe Stack Overflow and an ad came up for a position at Inlight. It looked interesting so I decided to investigate.

Awesome! We’re glad the initial investigation has led to you joining the team!

You’re just getting started here at Inlight, but what is exciting you about the future?

I’m excited to get to know everyone at Inlight a little better and to get some more hands on experience with some front end libraries and frameworks. I’m also hoping the my reasonably broad skill set and experience will mean I can help out on projects in multiple ways.

Good stuff, we can’t wait to see what you’ll get your hands on in the coming months.

In the interest of some more ‘Who is Sandy Milne’ info… have you always lived in Melbourne?

I’ve lived in Melbourne my whole life but have been lucky enough to be able to travel overseas and spend some time adventuring around the world. My wife is originally from Yorkshire in the UK so I’ve spend a fair bit of time in old blighty visiting family and friends.

After I finished school I did a couple of years study doing psychology and computing but ended up deciding to take some time off study and got into music and DJing. That lead to doing a diploma of sound production at RMIT and then working as a sound engineer at a sound studio in Port Melbourne for about 7 years. While working there I started writing some sound related software for the studio and writing some iPhone apps in my spare time.

I ended up finishing my original computing degree studying part time while working full time at the studio and drinking lots of coffee and tea to stay up late and finish my assignments. I was enjoying coding way too much and wanted to really hone my skills so I decided it was time for a career change. I got a job at an awesome company in Melbourne called Yellowfin BI that make a web based analytics platform. I started as a mobile developer but then moved into working across, mobile, backend, frontend development and some devOps as well.

I’ve also worked on a couple of side projects over the years, including a children’s phonics program app, a collaboration with an artist and the City of Melbourne to build an app to discover stories around Melbourne and an app that provides a comprehensive collection of Australian slang with audio examples (I also channeled my inner bogan and provided the voice for the examples).

Whoa! That is definitely a windy road, but love this diverse background. Cool that you’ve ended up here, I would have thought international fame and stardom would follow your bogan voice acting. Do any of your past activities take up some of your weekend? Or do you have a different end of week routine?

We’re very lucky to have a family beach house down at Point Lonsdale that my Grandparents own and share among our family. So when we can it’s great to get down there and spend some time out of the city. I also enjoy going to the movies or seeing a band or DJ (although I can’t handle the 4am DJ sets anymore) and catching up with friends and my family. And if I can get at least one sleep in, I’m happy.

Sounds like a dream, looks like you’ve got your leisure time down to a fine art. Given your varied geographical location/job experience I’m thinking you could have some interesting hobbies. Am I right?

You could say that! A couple of years ago I started building and flying radio controlled quadcopters/drones. Since then it’s tuned into a bit of an obsession. The quadcopters have a camera and video transmitter so you can either use a screen or video goggles and fly them from a first person view (or FPV as they call it). I have a couple of friends who I used to catch up with and we would setup a course in a park somewhere and race. It’s incredibly geeky but a lot of fun.

I also enjoy working on music and sound design, writing software to control all my home automation devices, writing mobile apps, learning Spanish and Surfing… as you can probably tell I have trouble sitting still.

I knew there would be something there, I can only imagine how much fun flying first person would be...and no repercussions for crashing! Except for the financial hit from destroying what I could only assume is an expensive drone.

Okay - almost done, just a quick fire round to end.

Favourite food?

Lobster rolls, but pizza and tacos are a close second.

Favourite movie?

I don’t really have a favourite but I watched a documentary recently called Kedi about the street cats of Istanbul which I really liked. I also quite like Wes Anderson’s films so I’m looking forward to seeing Isle of Dogs.

Favourite song (right now)?

I don’t really have a favourite (I know how very un-quickfire) but currently I’m really enjoying All Melody the latest album by Nils Frahm and New Energy by Four Tet.

Favourite country you have travelled to?

This would probably have to be Spain, Portugal, Iceland or Switzerland.. actually don’t make me pick it’s too hard ;)

Great stuff Sandy, awesome to hear more about you.