We’re a technology company based in Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand. We are experts in modern web development, with wide interests and the skills to turn ideas into reality. We contribute to open source communities and favour projects that do good.
Our portfolio spans web, iOS, and Android applications. We specialise in projects that require complex interactions, social behaviour, and exploring new technologies or business models. We work with proven open source technologies such as Ruby on Rails and JavaScript to rapidly create reliable and flexible products. We use Agile methodologies to ensure you end up with the system you want without the stress that you don’t.
We recommend prototyping to test ideas at minimal cost before worrying about the finer points and polish. Consider spending time with us exploring your problems - let’s see what we can achieve together.
We strongly believe open debate and discussion trumps formal tender process in obtaining quality outcomes. Get in touch with us while you’re still planning your first moves.
We believe strongly in using technology to make the world a better place, and have played a hand in many social startups, pro bono projects with social benefit, and community events. Our values enable a supportive internal culture that encourages curiosity, innovation, and community contribution.
Rabid was born out of Enspiral, a network to empower social business. As such, we have an excellent network of creative, passionate, community-minded professionals to call upon and worthy projects to contribute to.
We believe in openness, and contribute actively to the open source community.
We allocate time to staff to work on their own projects. We find that people learn useful skills when they are given the opportunity to pursue their intellectual curiosity or work towards their passions.
We use an Agile approach to development. At heart, Agile development is about balancing your project requirements with the reality of building new systems. We achieve better outcomes with development in increments, a focus on users, and open communication with clients.
We work hard to have a highly transparent, minimal-jargon process.
Our development is paired with a design philosophy prioritising user experience. Through research, we test assumptions about who will use the systems, what they need, and how they will behave.
Josh manages relationships throughout Rabid and develops new business leads. A director of Rabid, Josh advises start-ups and commercial clients on their strategy and direction. As Chair of Enspiral Foundation and one of the first members of the network, he’s seen many audacious projects and brings that wide experience to projects at Rabid.
With interests including online entrepreneurship, social enterprise and product development, Josh cares about the impact work has on clients and understands that successful projects involve hard work and clear communication.
Breccan’s role at Rabid ranges from project management and technical leadership through to start-up governance and product strategy. A Director of Rabid and PledgeMe, he has been leading agile teams that have consistently delivered successful projects for many years.
He organised the first RailsCamp in New Zealand, has spoken at a number of events, coached at Railsgirls, and volunteered on GRIT learning in Cambodia.
Sandra is a highly skilled Project Manager with over 15 years experience. She has managed projects of varying scale in the film and television industry and was Project Manager at Film New Zealand, New Zealand’s international film business attraction agency and locations office (funded by MBIE).
Sandra joined Rabid in 2014 and has become a champion of the Agile framework and methodology, bringing to her role excellent project delivery, client liaison and team working skills.
Sandra recently led the Rabid team to create and produce the interactive documentary Together We Make a Nation , funded by NZ on Air. She has a strong interest in sustainability and lives in the Wairarapa.
Eoin joined Rabid in 2012, after immigrating to New Zealand from Ireland. With over 10 years experience in web technology under his belt, Eoin is committed to working within an agile framework. He is precise, technically focussed and enjoys making things work perfectly.
Eoin is an active participant in the Wellington technology community, recently giving talks on topics such as Structured CSS and DCI for Rubyists to groups such as the Wellington Ruby, Javascript and Design Professional meetups. He has been a mentor at RailsGirls as well as organising the Wellington Ember.js meetup, and volunteers on GRIT Learning (a social enterprise using E-Learning in low-economic schools in Cambodia).
Josh feels lucky to be involved in an industry where he can constantly apply his enthusiasm for learning new things. Coming from a previous role heading up a multidisciplinary development team working in an Agile environment using Scrum, he now focuses on development of web applications, hybrid and native Android applications. With experience in multi-server rollout and management, command of multiple server-side programming languages (specializing in Ruby on Rails), native development practises and development, and client-side frameworks and tools, he contributes a wide variety of knowledge and experience to any project in which he is involved.
When he's not coding, Josh enjoys exploring New Zealand - the more remote the better!
Cara has been with Rabid since she graduated from the Enspiral Dev Academy over two years ago. Cara is passionate about technology and loves working on Ruby on Rails apps, preferably backend focussed, with lots of RSpec unit tests to write.
Cara decided to make the jump into software development after a ten year career in Marketing and Communications. She was attracted to the endless possibilities web development affords, the inherent creativity it demands, and the rapid pace at which it progresses and transforms. Her experience as a Marketing Manager is incredibly valuable to Rabid and her communication skills have helped bridge the gap between our more experienced technical experts and our less technical stakeholders.
Cara was involved with Cultivate Mentoring Labs as a mentor for two terms (2016 - 2017), she was a coach at the 2016 Rails Girls Wellington and was a speaker at the 2017 Code Camp Wellington.
Ben is a geek who wants to make the world a better place. He has over 7 years of experience developing Open Source websites in windy Wellington. Ben has a keen interest in accessibility, security and maintainability.
Ben enjoys tea, coffee, craft beer, pizza, living in a community flat, listening to audiobooks and volunteering in NZ and overseas. He also likes writing code.
James has spent more than 20 years making the internet. From his early days managing banks of modems at internet service providers to working on today’s advanced cloud services, James has focused on enhancing user experiences through technical excellence. These days, James spends his days building software for the web using Rails and Ember.js, and tries to only use his powers for good.
James is an active member of the New Zealand Ruby community and a former committee member of Ruby New Zealand. He was also the organiser of the 2015 Rails Camp in Whangaparaoa, north of Auckland. When he’s not busy raising his kids and writing copious amounts of Open Source software, James volunteers his time as a Waterwise Instructor, teaching ten and eleven year old students how to sail and be confident on the water.
Minh’s quest for sustainability has lead him through a winding path of Architecture, Building Science, Economics and Information Systems. He picked up programming along the way as it was a great utility for academia and somehow that became his main trade. Minh worked as a freelancer building web applications with Ruby on Rails for a few years before he joined an enterprise where he wrote Chef recipes, as well as libraries and services for Infrastructure automation. He was excited to join Rabid in 2015 because he wants to work toward his passion of building businesses with like-minded people.
Minh is passionate about education, democracy, sustainability, and technologies. He believes that technology holds the keys for improving the standard of living for everyone: people should be liberated from making a living to enjoy arts, physical and intellectual activities; and global food distribution should be solved with optimal local production. When Minh’s not busy with his kids, he thinks about bringing the expertise of Rabid to the Vietnam and South East Asia markets to cultivate local opportunities.
Building on a BSc in Computer Science, Jake spent thirteen years working on bespoke web and traditional applications with a diverse range of customers, as well as helping develop an in-house proprietary application framework, and even a short stint doing level-3 support which was… illuminating…
This experience has cultivated a healthy compassion for users, who really want computers to be both an enabling and invisible tool to get their jobs done or show them cat pictures. Jake is a practised and consummate tinkerer, when he is not making beer or soap or bread or noodles or breaking his headphones trying to solder them better, he can be found elbows deep in code experimenting in video game development.
Amy has over 20 years of experience in administration and management, in both public and private sector organisations. Since moving to Wellington in 2005, she has spent the majority of her time working in the film industry, supporting the IT Department at Weta Digital as a Production Manager for five years, and then as a manager of various teams at Park Road Post Production for another three.
Amy believes that good managers make an enormous difference to people’s wellbeing. Outside of work, she is one of the facilitators for Managers Anonymous, a weekly peer group mentoring group for managers, and she is also a volunteer mentor with Cultivate Mentoring Lab. She also enjoys creating a variety of art - lino cut prints, pen and ink illustrations, and short stories for children.
Haunani has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and is a career taught designer and usability expert. She has played many roles in her 20 year tech career from a visual and interaction designer and user researcher, to strategist and UX architect, and a consultant specialising in holistic customer experiences.
A passionate believer in building beautiful, simple experiences that help people get “stuff” done, she is all about the user needs being at one with the business goals. When’s she is not using her UX superpowers for good, Haunani is a cat mom, co-organiser for User Experience Auckland, and an avid traveler. She takes great joy in experiencing films, art, and occasionally hoarding art supplies.
Vinitha holds a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and was previously a teacher of 2D animation in India. After two years of teaching, she came to New Zealand in 2010 to pursue a graduate degree in 3D animation. She also has a great love and passion for videography. Originally she considered herself as an animator but once she started programming in Flash she found herself enjoying that far more than being just an animator. She upskilled herself at Enspiral Dev Academy and after graduating she has been a freelance developer. Vinitha is really excited about being part of Rabid’s culture.
She has also volunteered her technical expertise to help build the website for the Wellington branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand. During her spare time she loves spending her time with her family, watching movies and cooking authentic south Indian dishes.
Marian graduated from Victoria University with a Bachelor’s in Computer Science. She is excited by the creative challenges and social obstacles of delivering solutions to clients. Marian is keen on optimising development practices and defeating technical debt. She works hard on making Rabid an even better place to work.
Marian loves playing video games and watching anime in her spare time. She loves sharing her enthusiasm with others, this includes passionate distribution of candy to co-workers.
Oscar is the youngest member of the company, even in dog years, and was originally brought on for a happiness management and fun governance role. Despite this being Oscar’s first professional appointment, he was quickly promoted to Puppy CEO in recognition of his continued excellence in morale boosting and attention to detail (especially where food crumbs are involved).
When he's not working, Oscar enjoys eating, napping and shredding cardboard boxes. He is very friendly and will say hello to everyone and anyone. Oscar has a great work-life balance, working on-site with Rabid once or twice a week and spending the rest of his working week focussing on his time at home. He does not have rabies.
Stephanie has become a project manager and a certified scrum master after many years as a software developer in various corporate and government roles. She embraces the Agile methodologies as experience has taught her they are the best way to deliver software that truly meets clients’ needs. Stephanie is passionate about people being happy in their jobs and fostering a healthy office culture and work/life balance. She has lived and worked in NZ, Australia, the UK and France, and in recent years took time out to start a family. She’s back now and excited to be part of an organisation that’s socially conscious, and helps to create software for a sustainable and well-functioning future.
Stephanie enjoys doing yoga, playing the guitar and singing - usually when she’s not at work, but the two aren’t completely incompatible. She speaks French and is part of a dance collective that performs at least once a year. She also likes hanging out with her family, and is constantly in awe of how privileged she is to see her son growing up to be an amazing human being.
Elspeth graduated with a degree in Electrical and Computing engineering 10 years ago, and has been getting technical all over the world ever since. Her experience has been diverse, from teaching high schoolers how to build their own portable speakers in Tokyo to designing the production lines for medical manufacture. She has been a developer exclusively for the last 6 years. She sees the internet as a global leveller, where anyone can have a voice. She has enjoyed working for big clients in the fast-paced digital landscape of Glasgow and London. Now she is happy to be back in her home country helping businesses and non-profits get the most from their investments.
When she isn’t on her laptop, she is pursuing making the perfect mug at the local pottery club, brewing beers and plotting her next adventure on Atlas Obscura.
Katie holds a Bachelor of Design(Hon) and is a trained illustrator. After a post-university stint freelancing and working in finance, she studied at the Enspiral Dev Academy with the aim of returning to a more creative sector.
Katie's spare time is spent drawing or painting on the nearest available surface, and puzzling over Javascript libraries and game development platforms. She hopes to combine her love of art and code by building video games in the future.
Chris has always been an entrepreneur and geek at heart. He spent his early teens learning to program in basic. He wrote his first consulting invoice when he was 16 to setup a linux server and a small computer network. He had a consulting business with over 25 commercial clients before he headed to Uni, or College as they call it in America. As a recent immigrant, he’s excited to enjoy the welcoming Kiwi culture.
Chris explored mainframe computing at IBM, IT for small and large business, and DevOps (before AWS was a thing) before landing on his passion for web application development. Chris has been developing in Rails for 6 years, and PHP for 10 years before that. In his off time Chris likes to travel, he’s been to 6 countries and 20 different states in the US. He is a cyclist, hiker, and used to own a 10.3 meter long RV.
Kim is an Account Manager at Rabid, looking after client strategy as well as brand and communications. She has worked for tech companies for over a decade both in her hometown of London and in Wellington.
Kim is driven to make the world a better place through contributions in technology, communication and connecting people. She's passionate about building common understanding and making things happen. Described by others as "fiercely efficient" and "unfazed by challenges" she's not afraid to ask the questions that get to the heart of a problem. All about open debate and discussion, she likes working with companies that want to optimise their user experience and deliver solutions that actually work. She also enjoys working with smart people who help her raise her game.
Lukas Quang Nguyen holds a Commerce degree from the University of Canterbury. He has been working in IT for a number of years, in industries ranging from financial services to broadcast media. He enjoys solving challenging problems and strives to deliver the best solutions that meet clients' needs. He has interests in data visualisation, automation and history.Lukas Quang Nguyen holds a Commerce degree from the University of Canterbury. He has been working in IT for a number of years, in industries ranging from financial services to broadcast media. He enjoys solving challenging problems and strives to deliver the best solutions that meet clients' needs. He has interests in data visualisation, automation and history.
Outside of work, he likes watching TV series, playing table tennis and hanging out with friends. Lukas is also involved in volunteering to help overseas immigrants look for jobs in Wellington, primarily in the IT sector. It is a rewarding experience as he can empower and help others in finding a successful career in New Zealand.
Matt's career in IT has spanned a range of roles from software analyst and developer to project and product management for startups through to banks and corporates in New Zealand and the UK. Currently Matt is enjoying getting his hands dirty and writing code.
With a keen interest in art and design, when Matt isn't working he likes to make beautiful and clever things as well as escaping into nature as much as possible.
Jessica is passionate about start-ups. She has been involved extensively in start-ups, firstly in customer service and administration roles, before learning how to code.
Jessica has a Bachelor of Science in Geography. Learning to program for GIS related courses sparked an interest in web development. This led to her joining Enspiral Dev Academy in 2014. She has two years prior experience as a web developer before joining the team at Rabid.
In her spare time, Jessica likes to attend life drawing classes, write for children and go for walks around New Zealand's untamed spaces.
Caleb originally worked as a chef before deciding to pursue his true passion of computers and electronics by undertaking an ECEN (Electronics and Computer Systems Engineering) degree at Victoria University in Wellington. Caleb joined Rabid in January 2017, with a few years industry experience as a Rails Developer and Systems Engineer under his belt.
He has experience with a wide variety of languages including Java, C, Python, Ruby, Javascript and even VHDL for programming FPGA’s.
His experience in web-development traverses the full stack and although he has spent more time in the back-end he enjoys writing maintainable CSS and HTML for a responsive front-end.
Serge is a UX|UI Designer with 5 years of industry experience in frontend. With a Master's degree in Art and Philosophy, he, nevertheless, found his path in the graphic design world, which later opened wide to reveal the wonder of web design. After being awarded a Natcol/YOBEE Web Developer Diploma in 2010, Serge plunged into the deep waters of the web with no attempts to navigate out. His UX role at Rabid is a perfect combination of his design and frontend development skills.
Outside work, Serge still pursues his interests in metaphysics, theology, cosmology, fine arts and photography. He is also a keen ice skater, and you can spot him ice doodling on "reflective cool surfaces" in Wellington (or any place in the world where he finds an ice rink). He adores animals and has already adopted 2 Wellingtonian cats - Schnapps and Catapult.