How a Surf Loving Aussie Developed Sonatype’s Most Popular Extension

The first thing you need to know about Sonatype is this: the rumors are true.

Take Glassdoor, for example. Current and former employees praise the talent and work ethic of their peers. After all, as a distributed, self-directed team, we work hard. But we also have the freedom and diligence to pursue passions outside of work — even some a bit extreme.

^{Sales engineer and lifeguard Cameron Townshend, second from left.}

To Surf or Code?

So who skips a weekend surfing Sydney’s famous shoreline to create a Sonatype Nexus Chrome extension? For fun! A no-brainer according to sales engineer and surfer Cameron Townshend.

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“I thought it would be useful for a number of reasons,” says Cameron, modestly. He manages to make Python-parsing-it-up over a few hours sound as easy as getting a suntan on Bondi Beach.

“I wrote the plugin in my spare time mostly,” he says, “in hotel rooms and aeroplanes as I traveled.”

Clearly Cameron is a master of using his ‘spare time.’ With his wife Carolina he has three daughters, Serena, Isabella, and Sophia. He’s also a hiking and surfing enthusiast. To top it off, he volunteers as a lifeguard at Bronte Surf Life Saving, the oldest club in the world.

(Not so fun fact: the beach he patrols is the second most dangerous in New South Wales, based on number of rescues and drownings.)

^{Cameron with his daughter, Serena, and wife, Carolina, hiking in the Andes Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.}

His ‘why’ will resonate with anyone who values efficiency.

“I wanted the enhanced Sonatype Security research available to the developer in their environment,” he explains. The extension shifts security left by enabling developers to get information on an open source component before they download it. “I did not want to have (Read more...)