Karl Hepworth (fubarhouse)

I started by career with Drupal career under the care of Stephen and Margery in 2013.

I entered a role focused on content editing, with the intention of moving towards a development role. It wasn't long until I was shifted around in the dynamic Australian government of the time and I entered a development role and began piling up responsibilities which kept me happy and busy.

I moved into a development role with a new agency in 2015 and began my role in Systems Engineering after Morpht were consulting and helping to move us to Acquia infrastructure. It was Murray who recommended me to use DrupalVM and my Operations career was in full swing.

I built and supported the team on a standardized local development stack using Vagrant-based DrupalVM with many customisations including Jenkins and Acquia Cloud Enterprise software management, and I even built a number of websites myself. A very special thanks to marblegravy for everything he had done for me during these years, I would not be the same without you.

Eventually, I became unsettled with some circumstances at work and I was burning out. I moved onto a new Operations position that gave me more freedom, was higher profile and provided me opportunity to learn Kubernetes - which seemed to be the missing piece when it came to Docker. I'd like to take a moment to thank my colleagues at the time for their support.

It wasn't until DrupalSouth in Hobart where I met Mike. He may not know it but he played a huge part in my career divergence and he gave me many great pointers. We remain good friends to this day, but I must credit him for the career changes that were to follow.

The pandemic followed only months after DrupalSouth 2019, and at the time I had designed my life almost exactly the way I wanted it. The only things missing were the ability to work with certain technologies, to be more challenged and to have control over my environment. This control was beginning to vanish after the initial pandemic controls were loosened, so it was time for me to move on.

After a short break I was picked up by Nick and ever since he has remained my Mentor at PreviousNext. To this day I haven't felt incomplete, unchallenged or not in control of my life or career.

These days I'm getting more involved on a volunteer basis with the regional DrupalSouth Steering Committee helping members with excessive workloads. One example is an upcoming event which hasn't been announced. I'm involved to get experience and to see how it comes together. Perhaps if everything goes right I may be running for the election in the future to get even more involved. I've seen this course transform people and I want that transformation for myself. I wouldn't be trying if I didn't want to learn.

Today, I happily work with all the fun cloud technologies these days and I'm increasing my commitment to giving back to the community as a result. I work with a talented group of people and I love them dearly, if you're in need of good Drupal people or hosting, please look us up!

Complete event record

For my own personal records, I am maintaining a comprehensive list of events and participating roles below.

Talked at the following events:

• DrupalSouth 2025 (Melbourne, Australia)
• DrupalCon Asia: Singapore 2024 (Singapore, Singapore)
• DrupalSouth 2024 (Sydney, Australia)
• DrupalSouth 2023 (Wellington, New Zealand)
• DrupalSouth 2022 (Brisbane, Australia)
• DrupalSouth 2019 (Hobart, Australia)

Attended the following events:

• DrupalSouth: Community Day 2023 (Canberra, Australia)
• DrupalSouth: Shorts 2021 (online)
• DrupalGov 2020 (online)
• DrupalSouth 2018 (Canberra, Australia)
• DrupalGov 2016 (Canberra, Australia)

Performed volunteering work at the following events:

• DrupalCon Asia: Nara 2025 (Nara, Japan)
• DrupalSouth: Community Day 2025 (Canberra, Australia)
• DrupalSouth: Melbourne 2025 (Melbourne, Australia)
• DrupalCon Asia: Singapore 2024 (Singapore, Singapore)
• DrupalSouth: Community Day 2024 (Canberra, Australia)
• DrupalSouth: Community Day 2023 (Canberra, Australia)

Local meetups:

Since becoming actively involved in the community in 2015, I have attended at 30 local meetups as of April 2024. I also hosted a panel session at a local meetup in November 2022.

Videos:

• DrupalSouth 2024 (Sydney, Australia)
• DrupalSouth 2023 (Wellington, New Zealand)
• Hosted a local MeetUp panel (November 2022)
• DrupalSouth 2022 (Brisbane, Australia)
• DrupalSouth 2019 (Hobart, Australia)