Edwin Balani
Software engineer

Intro

I graduated with an MEng from the Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge, in 2020, after four happy years at Magdalene College.

Now, I’m a software engineer working on safety-critical embedded systems at a company in Cambridge.

In my free time, I like programming, electronics, and looking after Linux systems.

This website exists mainly because I kept telling myself I’d like to code one up — so here it is. For now, it’s just a single page, but I hope to start blogging at some point Very Soon™.

Contact

If you already have an address/number/username for me, then just use that.

Otherwise, you can reach me by email at .

If you want to contact me using PGP, use the key found on my SRCF homepage and write to any of the email addresses it describes.

Fun

If I’m not working at my day job or having some down time, I can probably be found doing one of these:

Computing

I'm a sysadmin at the Student-Run Computing Facility, a society in Cambridge University that provides free hosting, email & more to members of the University (staff and students alike).

I got involved with this club while I was still a student, and after a few years (including one in the position of committee chair) I can’t quite give it up :)

Meanwhile I grapple with self-hosting all the things: this website (on Apache), my DNS (with Knot DNS), an email server for me and a few friends (based around Exim 4), and multi-site, multi-device backups & synchronisation (I use Syncthing).

Websites

I’m heavily involved with Cambridge University Eco Racing, the UK’s leading solar car race team. I had the joy of going to Australia in October 2019 to compete in the World Solar Challenge, with the team’s car Helia, a culmination of two years’ design, manufacture, sweat and frustration.

As a separate project, I created CUER’s new website, which launched in August 2019. In collaboration with our Programme Director and Designer, I implemented theme customisation and house styling and chose Hugo as the core tool to build the site. Alongside this I do general system administration including DNS and the hosting service.

I created the original website for SolidariTee, a student-led charity, based at dozens of universities in the UK and abroad, that supports the international assistance of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe and elsewhere, by selling T-shirts and other accessories. I’m still involved with SolidariTee, looking after email, DNS and web-based collaboration/office tools.

Past student roles

I got involved with student representation in elected positions at various levels, which I highly recommend to any student who feels inclined to represent their peers!

I spent a couple of years, as IT Officer and webmaster of my college JCR (in essence a college students’ association). Pretty much immediately after this ended, I became a student representative inside the Engineering Department, for my year group and also on the Faculty Board at the top of Departmental governance.