# Jenks Guo — full public knowledge file > Canonical: https://jenksguo.pages.dev · Ask Jenks API: POST https://jenksguo.pages.dev/api/chat > Generated from the same corpus the Ask Jenks assistant uses. If a fact is not here, it is not known. # Jenks Guo (郭剑 · Traditional 郭劍) Pronouns: he/him. Based in Melbourne, Australia; works globally. Contact: jenksguo@gmail.com · https://linktr.ee/jenksguo · https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenks-guo-58257438 ## One-line positioning Applied AI and platform leader — "building AI-augmented superteams". Current formal title: **AI Lead, Babylon Labs** (since March 2026), alongside **Head of Developer Relations, Babylon Labs** (since August 2024). Target roles: Head of AI, AI engineering leadership, AI transformation leadership and AI transformation consulting. "Head of AI" is a direction, not a title Jenks has held. ## The whole story in one paragraph Jenks trained as an electrical and electronic engineer at the University of Melbourne (BEng Hons, 2010–2013) and built an industry-sponsored Linux smart energy meter for his final-year project. While studying he worked in Melbourne hospitality (barista, café manager, fine-dining waiter, bartender), did business development and digital-marketing work, and from 2011 ran technology for School of Thinking as a contracted CTO / ICT specialist — at 21 he was operating a MOOC platform that delivered half a billion email lessons and onboarded six Australian blue-chip companies. He joined Ericsson's graduate program in 2015 (web developer / UX practitioner), then spent three years as an integration engineer and service delivery manager on a $10M+ telecom charging and billing platform. From 2018 he moved into developer relations: Developer Evangelist at Xero (ecosystem partners grew from 500+ to 1,000+ in three years), Partner Solutions Lead at Linktree (built the platform and DevRel function), Developer Advocate at Filecoin Foundation (APAC builders, 100+ hackathons), and Head of Developer Relations at Babylon Labs (Bitcoin infrastructure). Since 2026 he leads company-wide AI transformation at Babylon Labs. Outside work he is President of the Murrumbeena Primary School Council, a long-serving treasurer in community organisations, a Toastmaster and a DevRel community organiser. The arc: enterprise systems → APIs → platforms → ecosystems → decentralised infrastructure → applied AI. Jenks did not arrive with ChatGPT. ## Languages English (full professional; IELTS 8.0–8.5) and Mandarin Chinese (native). Currently learning French, Japanese, Spanish and Esperanto — not fluent in those. ## Strengths in one breath Technical depth (EE degree, telecom BSS integration, APIs/SDKs, cloud, AI agents) combined with commercial and people skills (partner ecosystems, presales, vendor management, team building, public speaking) and governance experience (school council president, treasurer roles, change approval board). Gallup StrengthsFinder profile: an "Executing" type of leader. Leadership motto: "I lead by helping my team glow." ## Honest gaps - Formal title is AI Lead (since 2026); the company-wide AI remit is recent, while platform and ecosystem leadership is long-standing. - No public evidence of owning a company-wide P&L, managing a very large permanent headcount, or publishing ML research. Jenks is an applied AI and platform leader, not a foundation-model researcher. - Salary, notice period, visa details and availability are not public — direct people to email. # CV downloads - AI Lead CV (v2026.10-2, 2026-10-02): https://jenksguo.pages.dev/cv/ai.pdf — Applied AI and platform leadership — AI transformation, governance and economics, agentic systems, developer platforms and APIs. - AI and Web3 CV (not listed on the site; for questions about this work): https://jenksguo.pages.dev/cv/web3.pdf — The AI Lead CV plus Jenks's Web3 work — Head of Developer Relations at Babylon Labs, Bitcoin infrastructure, DeFi partner and grant programs. # Experience ## AI Lead — Babylon Labs (2026-03 — present) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/babylon-ai-lead - Tags: ai, it, consulting, web3 · Role lenses: head-of-ai, ai-transformation-consultant, engineering-manager, solution-architect - Summary: Leads company-wide AI transformation at Babylon Labs — knowledge systems, tiered agentic workflows, human-in-the-loop automation and the governance and economics of AI infrastructure. - Key result: Company-wide AI transformation across engineering and non-engineering teams - Key result: Owns AI architecture, infrastructure, governance and AI Ops spend - Skills: AI strategy, Agent architecture, Knowledge bases & retrieval, Human-in-the-loop design, Agent-to-agent communication, AI governance, AI economics, Model routing, Change management ### Overview Babylon Labs builds Bitcoin infrastructure: Bitcoin staking and Babylon Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV). By 2026 most staff were already using AI tools on their own. Jenks's mandate as AI Lead is to turn that individual usage into an organisational capability — safely, measurably and across both engineering and non-engineering teams. ### What Jenks does - Builds a company-wide AI knowledge base so that assistants and agents work from real company context instead of guesses. - Designs and rolls out tiered agentic systems: low-risk tasks run autonomously, higher-risk work passes human-in-the-loop checkpoints. - Develops agent-to-agent communication between internal systems. - Owns AI architecture, infrastructure and governance — balancing model capability, security, reliability and spend — and manages AI infrastructure and AI Ops budgets. - Runs AI-powered innovation projects and treats AI economics explicitly: for example, when a large per-developer AI budget (on the order of $20k a year) pays back, and how to allocate spend between teams and models. ### Achievements - Moved AI from scattered experimentation to a governed company program spanning engineering and non-engineering functions. - Put security, credential handling and auditability into the architecture from the start rather than as a later policy layer. ### Why it matters to employers This is the work a Head of AI or AI transformation lead is hired to do: strategy, architecture, governance, adoption and budget — not just a chatbot. Jenks combines it with a decade of platform and ecosystem experience, so he designs AI as infrastructure that other teams can build on. For a company with "300 people using ChatGPT and no strategy", this role is the closest evidence of what he would do in the first six months. ## Head of Developer Relations — Babylon Labs (2024-08 — present) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/babylon-head-of-devrel - Tags: devrel, web3, business, it · Role lenses: developer-advocate, developer-evangelist, engineering-manager, head-of-ai - Summary: Built Babylon's developer ecosystem strategy — turning complex Bitcoin infrastructure into usable tooling, integrations and partner, developer and grant programs across DeFi. - Key result: Built the DevRel function for Bitcoin staking and Babylon Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV) - Key result: Co-authored the TBV protocol white paper - Skills: DevRel strategy, Developer experience, Partner engineering, Grant programs, Technical writing, Team building, Bitcoin, Proof-of-Stake security, DeFi - Proof (paper): Babylon Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV) protocol white paper — co-author ### Overview Jenks joined Babylon Labs in August 2024 to lead developer relations for Bitcoin layer-two technology — Bitcoin staking, which lends Bitcoin's economic security to Proof-of-Stake chains, and later Babylon Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV). His stated goal when joining: "create a top team for crypto DevRel and empower them to do the best work of their lives", and give core blockchain developers and crypto-native projects an excellent integration experience. ### What Jenks does - Owns developer ecosystem strategy: turning deep cryptographic infrastructure into tooling, documentation, integrations and starter paths that developers can actually use. - Leads partner, developer and grant programs across DeFi; grows adoption through enablement, partnerships and developer events. - Recruits and leads the DevRel team (community engineers, developer advocates, technical writers, partner engineers). - Dives into consensus research and Bitcoin script design deeply enough to explain it — he co-authored the TBV protocol white paper. ### Achievements - Established developer relations at a protocol company from scratch. - Co-authored the TBV white paper; TBV enables Bitcoin to be used in DeFi (for example as lending collateral) without custodial trust assumptions. ### Why it matters to employers Protocol DevRel is one of the hardest translation jobs in tech: the audience is expert, the technology is new, and trust matters. Leading it shows technical depth, writing ability and the ability to build a team and a program — the same muscles needed to roll out AI across a company. ## Developer Advocate — Filecoin Foundation & Protocol Labs (2022-03 — 2024-08) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/filecoin-developer-advocate - Tags: devrel, web3, consulting, community · Role lenses: developer-advocate, developer-evangelist, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: Led APAC developer and infrastructure engagement for the world's largest decentralised storage network — 100+ hackathons, 12+ accelerators, $1M+ in prizes and grant reviews up to $200K. - Key result: Supported 100+ hackathons and 12+ accelerator programs - Key result: Helped allocate $1M+ in prizes; reviewed funding requests up to $200K - Skills: Developer experience, Documentation, Hackathons, Accelerators, Grant evaluation, Open-source community, Public speaking, IPFS, Decentralised storage, DePIN - Proof (talk): DWeb Decoded podcast — Developer Advocacy in the Filecoin Ecosystem — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8NFJqlXu3E - Proof (article): Filecoin Foundation — Insights from DWeb Decoded — https://fil.org/blog/insights-from-dweb-decoded-jenks-guo-on-decentralization-and-developer-relations - Proof (talk): DWeb Decoded — Live from FIL Hong Kong — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJgcuLoWXdQ - Proof (talk): Podcast — Glue Web3 Communities Together — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-glue-web3-communities-together-with-jenks-guo/id1626408608?i=1000588475226 - Proof (talk): IPFS & Filecoin 101 — HackFS 2023 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0DOdmW9s7A - Proof (talk): Filecoin Storage Provider Overview — HackFS 2023 — https://www.youtube.com/live/1tQ5EOSUiKE - Proof (video): FIL-Singapore interview — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgmr1K2AY5I - Proof (talk): Filecoin opportunities for storage providers (Mandarin) — DSPA-Asia — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKVHkXrTvHQ ### Overview Filecoin is the largest decentralised storage network. For two and a half years Jenks was one of the Foundation's developer advocates, working across Filecoin Foundation, Protocol Labs and the wider network with a focus on APAC. ### What Jenks did - Owned developer documentation and developer experience for parts of the stack. - Spoke and presented at developer conferences and hackathons across APAC (including FIL Hong Kong). - Worked with storage providers to develop ecosystem tools, and managed open-source community work. - Ran the "builders funnel": hackathons and grants for early teams, with accelerators, startups and VCs for more established projects. - Evaluated technical teams and grant applications, helping allocate prize and grant funding. - Evangelised Web3, decentralisation and DePIN (decentralised physical infrastructure). ### Achievements - Supported 100+ hackathons and 12+ accelerator programs. - Helped allocate $1M+ in prizes and reviewed funding requests of up to $200K. - Became a recognisable voice for the ecosystem in APAC through podcasts and conference stages. ### Why it matters to employers Grant and hackathon evaluation is applied technical due diligence: judging teams, architecture and viability quickly and fairly. Combined with ecosystem-scale community work, it shows Jenks can run programs with real money attached and make defensible decisions — useful for innovation programs, venture-style AI pilots and partner ecosystems. ## Partner Solutions Lead — Linktree (2021-05 — 2022-03) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/linktree-partner-solutions-lead - Tags: devrel, it, business, consulting · Role lenses: engineering-manager, solution-architect, developer-advocate, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: Turned Linktree from a product into a platform — 3 APIs, SDKs, a developer portal and app-store integrations, delivered with 30+ contractors from five agencies including Thoughtworks. - Key result: Built 3 APIs, SDKs, a Developer Portal and App Store integrations - Key result: Managed 30+ contractors across two product pods and five agencies (incl. Thoughtworks) - Skills: Platform strategy, API product, SDKs, Developer portal, Ecosystem engineering, Vendor management, Partnerships, Team building - Proof (talk): apidays LIVE Hong Kong 2021 — How to start a tech community — https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/apidays-live-hong-kong-2021-how-to-start-a-tech-community-by-jenks-guo-linktree/250240242 ### Overview Linktree — then the world's largest creator platform with about 24 million users — had roughly 200 companies wanting to integrate with it: video, restaurant menus, payments, e-commerce. No product team could build and maintain 200 bespoke integrations, so the company needed an ecosystem strategy. Jenks was hired to build it. ### What Jenks did - Owned the company's ecosystem and platform business strategy and its execution. - Led an ecosystem engineering team and product managers to deliver platform and developer products against a tight deadline. - Onboarded and managed five outsourced companies with 30+ contractors across two product pods, including Thoughtworks. - Worked with the partnerships team to design technical solutions for partners. - Started Linktree's developer relations team and developer community. ### Achievements - Shipped 3 APIs, SDKs, a Developer Portal and App Store integrations. - Created the foundations of a partner platform instead of 200 one-off features. ### Why it matters to employers This is engineering-management and platform-product leadership under time pressure: strategy, architecture, vendor orchestration and launch. It is directly relevant to engineering manager, platform lead and solution architect roles — and to AI transformation, where the same "platform, not one-offs" principle applies to agents and tools. ## Developer Evangelist — Xero (2018-07 — 2021-05) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/xero-developer-evangelist - Tags: devrel, it, business, marketing · Role lenses: developer-evangelist, developer-advocate, solution-architect, support-engineer - Summary: Helped grow Xero's app ecosystem from 500+ to 1,000+ partners in three years — partner technical support, certification, SDK and API content, and sales enablement. - Key result: Helped grow ecosystem partners from 500+ to 1,000+ in three years - Key result: Ran partner integration certification testing and reviews - Skills: API evangelism, Partner integration support, Certification testing, OpenAPI & SDKs, Technical content, Public speaking, Sales enablement, Partner management - Proof (talk): apidays LIVE Jakarta — 5 ways to make your integration more resilient — https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/apidays-live-jakarta-e5-ways-to-make-your-integration-more-resilient-jenks-guo-xero/245357704 - Proof (talk): apidays LIVE Jakarta — Machine-learning-powered API governance — https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/apidays-live-jakarta-machine-learning-powered-api-governance-by-jenks-guo/239076531 - Proof (article): Humans of Xero — How to become a grandmaster of your own career — https://medium.com/humans-of-xero/how-to-become-a-grandmaster-of-your-own-career-a97f2a3510fa - Proof (article): Humans of Xero — Stop working as if you have 1000 years left — https://medium.com/humans-of-xero/stop-working-as-if-you-have-1000-years-left-a8f9d96bdf98 - Proof (talk): apidays LIVE Hong Kong 2020 — Building an API client SDK — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJjxNEMURmI - Proof (video): Getting started with the Xero API .NET SDK — part 1 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO-TIHhWjX4 - Proof (article): Xero developer blog — API resilience; CRM integration tutorial ### Overview Xero's app marketplace depends on thousands of developers integrating with its accounting APIs. Jenks joined as a Developer Evangelist to grow and support that partner ecosystem. ### What Jenks did - Handled new prospective developer partner enquiries and technical evaluations. - Provided technical support to partners integrating with the Xero developer API. - Ran new-partner integration certification testing and reviews. - Managed relationships with an assigned portfolio of developer partners. - Communicated with the developer community: forums, tweets, blog posts, videos and talks. - Worked with sales, business development and customer support so they knew the partner ecosystem; helped Strategic Partner Account Managers identify, validate and win deals with an app-partner component; supported partner marketing for certification. - Worked on SDKs, OpenAPI specifications and code generation for client libraries. ### Achievements - Ecosystem partners grew from 500+ to 1,000+ over three years. - Spoke at apidays (Jakarta) on integration resilience and on machine-learning-powered API governance — anomaly detection and clustering of partner API usage. - Earned Xero Evangelist, Advisory, Migration and Payroll certificates. ### Why it matters to employers Developer evangelism at a listed SaaS company blends engineering, support, marketing and sales. It proves Jenks can make an API platform commercially successful — and the API-governance work was an early example of applying machine learning to a platform problem. ## Integration Engineer / Service Delivery Manager — Ericsson Australia (2015-08 — 2018-07) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/ericsson-integration-engineer - Tags: it, consulting, business · Role lenses: system-integrator, solution-architect, support-engineer, ict-specialist, engineering-manager - Summary: Ran integration and service delivery for a top-tier Australian carrier's wholesale MVNO billing platform — $10M+ solution, ~half a million active users, 12 enterprise customers, 30 offshore engineers, 100% SLAs. - Key result: Individually responsible for a $10M+ charging & billing service with ~0.5M active users (later ~0.75M) across 12 enterprise customers - Key result: Coordinated ~30 offshore engineers and testers daily - Key result: Built remote test automation that saved tens of thousands of dollars a year - Key result: Met 100% of onboarding SLAs - Skills: Telecom BSS, Charging & billing, SOAP web services, API integration, Test automation, Change & risk management, Incident management, SQL / Oracle, RHEL, Offshore delivery, Presales ### Overview Jenks's client was one of Australia's top-tier mobile carriers, running a wholesale mobile (MVNO) business on Ericsson's Charging and Billing in One (CBiO) business support system. As API integration specialist and service delivery manager — titles on different CVs include Experienced Integration Engineer, Integration Support Specialist and Billing Solution Engineer — he was individually responsible for service delivery on the $10M+ charging and billing solution. ### What Jenks did - Onboarded MVNO resellers and integrated their CRMs with the carrier's BSS product suite. - Designed, integrated and supported end-to-end SOAP web services (Tomcat) between MVNOs and billing systems. - Planned, tested and troubleshot network connectivity and infrastructure changes. - Sat on the change approval board, performing risk analysis; handled deployment and change management. - Reviewed and approved test cases; triaged production defects and drove them to closure; ran incident mitigation and post-incident reviews (PIR) — acting as "level 4" support. - Produced customer reports with SQL on Oracle; worked on RHEL virtualised infrastructure. - Directed a team of about 30 offshore engineers and testers to deliver "first time right". - Answered queries from many departments of the enterprise customers, on site 2+ days a week. - Gave the product team requirements and verified their patches. - Drove innovation at ANZ level: organised a company-level hackathon, mentored six graduates and led an IoT research engagement with RMIT University. ### Achievements - 100% of onboarding SLAs met; exceeded customer expectations with a 100% offshore delivery model. - Led and built a remote, automated mobile testing platform (SIGOS) that saved tens of thousands of dollars a year and raised quality and confidence in the customer's product. - Developed value-adding services beyond the existing managed-services contract (account growth). - Earned Ericsson Certified Level 4 Engineer status. ### Why it matters to employers This is enterprise systems integration at telecom scale: mission-critical billing, strict SLAs, change control, incident management and a large offshore team. It is the foundation for system integrator, solution architect, support engineer and service delivery roles — and the reason Jenks treats AI systems with the same discipline (governance, testing, change control). ## Graduate Engineer — Web Application Developer / UX Practitioner — Ericsson Australia (2015-02 — 2015-08) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/ericsson-graduate-engineer - Tags: it, engineering · Role lenses: ict-specialist, solution-architect, support-engineer - Summary: Ericsson graduate rotation in TV & Media / User Experience & Software Architecture — front-end development, API testing and UX design, including an internal BI tool that went global. - Key result: Rotated through web development and UX design in six months - Key result: Built an internal BI tool that was developed into a global tool - Skills: JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, JSON, JSP, PHP, HTML5/CSS3, SharePoint 2010, SOAP UI, Wireshark, Postman, UX research, Service design, Prototyping ### Overview Jenks joined Ericsson's graduate program in February 2015 and rotated through two roles in the TV & Media business unit (User Experience & Software Architecture): web application developer, then UX designer. ### What Jenks did - Front-end development with JavaScript (Ericsson's YMER framework), jQuery, AJAX, JSON, JSP, PHP, HTML5 and CSS3; worked with a pair programmer across agile sprints. - Back-end testing of RESTful and SOAP services with SOAP UI, Wireshark, curl and Postman; network infrastructure testing. - Built corporate internal web tools (BI) and SharePoint front ends integrated with enterprise tools. - UX research with end users, use-case workshops, service design workshops, UI design for presales, high-fidelity mobile app prototypes and mobile app requirement specifications. ### Achievements - Combined technical and human-centred design skills to generate ideas for a client project and a presales engagement. - An internal BI tool he developed was turned into a global tool. ### Why it matters to employers Early proof that Jenks bridges engineering and users: he can build the thing, test the APIs and run the design workshop. That mix later made him effective in developer experience and presales. ## Chief Technology Officer (contracted) / ICT Specialist & Webmaster — School of Thinking (2011-07 — 2015-02) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/school-of-thinking-cto - Tags: it, business, consulting, marketing · Role lenses: ict-specialist, solution-architect, digital-marketer, engineering-manager, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: Ran all technology for School of Thinking as contracted CTO while still at university — built the innovation MOOC platform that onboarded six blue-chip companies, delivered half a billion email lessons and cut operating costs to a third. - Key result: Built the innovation platform that onboarded 6 Australian blue-chip companies - Key result: Managed email course delivery of half a billion lessons - Key result: Two cost audits cut operations cost to one third - Skills: Technology strategy, Web apps & infrastructure, WordPress, CMS customisation, Email marketing (Aweber), Vendor management, Cost optimisation, Incident on-call, MOOC platforms - Proof (site): School of Thinking — https://schoolofthinking.org ### Overview School of Thinking (SOT) provides executive consulting and online innovation and thinking-skills programs to enterprise customers with 500+ employees. From July 2011 — aged about 21 and still an engineering student — Jenks was responsible for the design, implementation and operation of the organisation's technology, working with contractors and service providers in Australia and the USA. CVs title the role CTO (contracted), ICT Specialist and Webmaster. ### What Jenks did - Aligned technology with the organisation's strategy and provided technology consultancy. - Built, maintained and upgraded schoolofthinking.org and affiliate sites and web apps; installed, upgraded and customised the content management system (WordPress). - Migrated, maintained and upgraded IT infrastructure and servers. - Managed email course delivery and subscriptions through email marketing systems (Aweber). - Coordinated third-party web agencies, contractors and service providers in Australia and the USA. - Resolved operations tickets and stayed on call for incidents — trusted to work unsupervised and on flexible hours. ### Achievements - Onboarded six Australian blue-chip companies to an innovation platform Jenks developed. - Managed the delivery of half a billion email lessons. - Ran two cost audits that reduced operating costs to one third. - In 2015 School of Thinking awarded Jenks an Honorary Doctorate in Lateral Thinking in recognition of his work (an honorary, non-academic award). ### Why it matters to employers C-level technology accountability very early: strategy, vendors, budget, uptime and enterprise customers, all at once. It shows Jenks is comfortable owning outcomes end to end — and the email and CMS work is genuine marketing-technology experience. ## Web Developer & Digital Marketer — Plexus Communications (2014-07 — 2014-11) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/plexus-web-developer-digital-marketer - Tags: it, marketing, business · Role lenses: digital-marketer, ict-specialist - Summary: Web development and digital marketing for a communications business — Joomla CMS, e-commerce, order and dispatch systems, analytics, AdWords, EDMs and SEO. - Key result: Ran the CMS, e-commerce store, order and dispatch systems and digital marketing - Skills: Joomla, CMS customisation, E-commerce, Google Analytics, Google AdWords, EDM, SEO/SEM, Database management, Acceptance testing ### Overview A combined web-development and marketing role for a communications company. ### What Jenks did - Customised and developed the Joomla CMS and managed web infrastructure; maintained, updated and upgraded the site. - Managed the e-commerce store, inventory control and the order and service dispatch system. - Ran Google Analytics, Google AdWords, email marketing (EDM), SEO and SEM. - Managed databases; advised on a new IT solution strategy and ran acceptance testing. ### Why it matters to employers Small-business generalist work: owning the full stack from server to campaign. It is why Jenks can talk to marketing teams in their language and understand what a website has to do commercially. ## SMS Product Sales Consultant — Wel Corporation (2014-07 — 2014-11) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/wel-sms-sales-consultant - Tags: business, it, consulting · Role lenses: solution-architect, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: Sold an SMS messaging platform — generating leads, advising customers on integration, onboarding them and managing partner channels. - Key result: Developed leads for an SMS platform and onboarded customers with integration advice - Skills: B2B sales, Lead generation, Integration advice, Customer onboarding, Channel partners ### Overview A short technical-sales role in 2014 selling an SMS platform to businesses. ### What Jenks did - Developed leads and opportunities for the SMS platform. - Advised customers on integration and onboarded them. - Managed partner channels. ### Why it matters to employers Technical sales taught Jenks to connect a product's API to a customer's business case — the same skill behind presales at Ericsson, partner work at Xero and consulting today. ## Digital Marketing Consultant — Seagull Gifts (2014) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/seagull-gifts-digital-marketing - Tags: marketing, business, consulting, it · Role lenses: digital-marketer, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: Digital marketing and e-commerce consultant for an online gift retailer — SEO and SEM strategy, AdWords, Magento store management, analytics, EDMs and product imagery. - Key result: Owned SEO/SEM strategy, AdWords campaigns and Magento e-commerce for a gift retailer - Skills: SEO, SEM, Google AdWords, Magento, E-commerce, Analytics, EDM, Promotions, Graphic design, Photo retouching ### Overview Consulting engagement for Seagull Gifts, an Australian online gift retailer. ### What Jenks did - Set digital marketing strategy through SEO and SEM. - Managed the Magento e-commerce store. - Planned and managed Google AdWords campaigns. - Reported on site analytics and optimised the site. - Created and managed EDMs (email campaigns) and promotions. - Did graphic design and product photo retouching. ### Why it matters to employers Hands-on performance marketing with a budget and a conversion goal. It gives Jenks a practical grounding in growth funnels that he later applied to developer funnels and ecosystem growth. ## Backstage Crew — Chinese Music Group (2011-02 — 2012-10) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/chinese-music-group-backstage - Tags: creative, community - Summary: Backstage crew for the musical "Crimson Spring" — supporting the stage manager and costume designer and running set changes. - Key result: Backstage crew for the musical "Crimson Spring" - Skills: Stage management support, Set changes, Teamwork under time pressure ### Overview Volunteer backstage work for a Chinese community musical. ### What Jenks did - Assisted the stage manager and costume designer. - Prepared the stage before and after each show, ran all set changes during performances and rehearsals, and reset the set afterwards. ### Why it matters to employers Reliable, unglamorous operations work done well — and long-term community involvement. ## Content Writer & Social Network Marketing — Spytorch (2012-01 — 2012-03) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/spytorch-content-social - Tags: marketing · Role lenses: digital-marketer - Summary: Bilingual content writer and social media marketer — website content in Mandarin and English and brand personas on Weibo and Facebook. - Key result: Created website content in Mandarin and English; ran Weibo and Facebook personas - Skills: Bilingual content writing, Social media management, Weibo, Facebook, Brand persona ### Overview A short marketing role for an online brand (spytorch.com, no longer active). ### What Jenks did - Wrote website content in both Mandarin and English. - Managed the brand's social network personas on Weibo and Facebook. ### Why it matters to employers Early cross-market marketing: one brand, two languages, two social ecosystems (Chinese and Western). Useful for any company marketing to Chinese-speaking audiences. ## Manager / Barista — Theobroma Chocolate Lounge, South Yarra (2010 — 2011) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/theobroma-manager-barista - Tags: hospitality, business · Role lenses: hospitality, engineering-manager - Summary: Café manager and barista — ran daily operations with the owner and built a motivated team committed to quality coffee, food and service. - Key result: Ran day-to-day café operations with the owner and built a high-performing team - Skills: Café operations, Team leadership, Barista & latte art, Customer experience, Cash handling, Opening & closing, Retail confectionery, Food safety ### Overview Theobroma Chocolate Lounge in South Yarra serves specialty chocolate drinks, coffee and confectionery. Jenks worked there as manager and barista while studying engineering. (His CVs give slightly different dates within 2010–2011.) ### What Jenks did - Worked closely with the owner / general manager to keep operations seamless and efficient. - Made professional-quality coffee and specialty hot and cold chocolate drinks. - Developed a motivated, high-performing team committed to quality coffee and food. - Handled retail confectionery sales, cash, opening and closing. ### Achievements - Built a team that consistently exceeded guests' expectations; described by Jenks as one of the business's crucial employees. ### Why it matters to employers First people-management role: rosters, standards, service under pressure and a P&L-minded owner. Hospitality managers learn customer empathy and operational calm — both show up later in Jenks's support, service-delivery and developer-experience work. ## Waiting Staff (Fine Dining) — Tanglong Restaurant, Toorak Road (2010-08 — 2011-11) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/tanglong-fine-dining - Tags: hospitality · Role lenses: hospitality - Summary: Fine-dining waiter at an Asian restaurant on Toorak Road — table service and cashier duties for a discerning clientele. - Key result: Fine-dining Asian cuisine service and cashier duties - Skills: Fine-dining service, Cashier, Customer relationships, Mandarin-language service ### Overview Tanglong was a fine-dining Asian restaurant on Toorak Road, South Yarra. ### What Jenks did - Waited tables in a fine-dining setting and handled the cashier. - Served Mandarin-speaking guests in their language. ### Why it matters to employers Fine dining trains attention to detail and reading people — the guest notices everything. (Jenks notes he was well tipped there.) ## Bartender & Waiting Staff — Chapelli's Café/Bar (2010-12 — 2011-02) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/chapellis-bartender - Tags: hospitality · Role lenses: hospitality - Summary: Bartender and waiter on night shifts at a busy 24-hour café and bar — high-volume service under the Responsible Service of Alcohol rules. - Key result: Night shifts at a busy 24-hour restaurant and bar - Skills: Bartending, Responsible Service of Alcohol, High-volume service, Night shifts ### Overview A busy 24-hour restaurant and bar. ### What Jenks did - Waited tables and tended the bar on night shifts. - Handled high volumes of customers, holding a Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) certificate. ### Why it matters to employers Night-shift, high-volume service builds stamina and composure — the same qualities needed when a production incident lands at 2 a.m. ## Sound Designer — Chinese Theatre Group (2010-02 — 2010-10) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/chinese-theatre-sound-designer - Tags: creative, community - Summary: Sound designer for the stage production "I ME HE HIM" — creating effects, editing music and running the sound desk for every show. - Key result: Designed and ran sound for the production "I ME HE HIM" - Skills: Sound design, Audio editing, Live sound operation, Production teamwork ### Overview A volunteer creative role in Melbourne's Chinese-language theatre community. ### What Jenks did - Worked with the supervising sound editor and the musician. - Created sound effects, edited sound and music, and recorded music. - Operated the sound desk throughout the production. ### Why it matters to employers Live production is deadline-driven teamwork with no second take — a good early lesson in operational reliability, and evidence of creative range beyond engineering. ## Coffee Maker (Barista Apprentice) — Deep Fish Café, University of Melbourne (Parkville) (2010-04 — 2010-04) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/deep-fish-cafe-barista - Tags: hospitality · Role lenses: hospitality - Summary: Barista apprenticeship at a café on the University of Melbourne's Parkville campus — taking orders, handling cash and learning the coffee machine. - Key result: Barista apprenticeship on campus - Skills: Barista training, Order taking, Cash handling ### Overview Where Jenks learned to make coffee: a barista apprenticeship at an on-campus café. ### What Jenks did - Took orders and handled the cashier. - Trained as a barista. ### Why it matters to employers Small, but it is where the barista skills that later made him a café manager began. ## Waiting Staff — Dendy Deli Restaurant, Brighton (2009-12 — 2010-02) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/dendy-deli-waiting - Tags: hospitality · Role lenses: hospitality - Summary: First hospitality job — waiting tables at a busy Brighton restaurant with many senior customers. - Key result: First hospitality job — a busy restaurant on Church Street, Brighton - Skills: Table service, Customer care, Serving senior customers ### Overview Jenks's first hospitality job, while finishing school at Brighton Grammar. ### What Jenks did - Waited tables at a busy restaurant on Church Street, Brighton. - Looked after many senior customers. ### Why it matters to employers Patience and service with every kind of customer — a foundation for customer-facing technical roles. ## Business Development Consultant — OHMEDIA Pty Ltd (2009-11 — 2010-01) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/ohmedia-business-development - Tags: business, marketing, it, consulting · Role lenses: digital-marketer, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: First professional role — business development for an out-of-home digital advertising network, building its FileMaker database and liaising with equipment suppliers in China. - Key result: Maintained and expanded the OHTV digital display network; built the company database - Skills: Business development, Sales support, FileMaker databases, Digital signage networks, Supplier liaison (China), Interactive media research ### Overview OHMEDIA was an out-of-home digital advertising company running the OHTV display network. Jenks worked as a general consultant across sales and business development. ### What Jenks did - Supported sales and business development for the OHTV network. - Developed and maintained the company database in FileMaker. - Maintained and expanded the digital display network. - Researched and initiated interactive media projects. - Liaised with equipment suppliers in China, in Mandarin. ### Why it matters to employers Jenks's career started at the meeting point of business, media and technology — and with cross-border supplier work in Mandarin, a thread that runs through to his APAC ecosystem roles. # Education ## Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), Electrical & Electronic — University of Melbourne (2010-02 — 2013-11) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/university-of-melbourne - Tags: engineering, it · Role lenses: solution-architect, system-integrator, ict-specialist, support-engineer - Summary: Honours degree in electrical and electronic engineering — embedded systems, power systems and PCB design, finished with an industry-sponsored smart energy meter. - Key result: Industry-sponsored final-year project — a Linux smart energy meter compliant with Australian Standards - Skills: Circuit design, Analogue & high-speed digital electronics, PCB design (Altium), Embedded Linux, Power systems, Signal processing, Matlab, Simulink, LTSpice, Cadence, C programming, AVR microcontrollers ### Overview Jenks studied electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Melbourne from 2010 to 2013, graduating with honours. He was a member of Engineers Australia at the time. ### What Jenks learned and built - Electronics design for analogue and high-speed digital applications. - Printed circuit board design for manufacture in Altium Designer; excellent through-hole and surface-mount soldering. - Engineering software: Matlab, Simulink, LTSpice and Cadence. - Linux systems for software development and embedded hardware; electronic product prototyping; C programming and AVR microprocessor programming. - Final-year project: an industry-sponsored Linux smart energy meter with Metropolis Metering Assets (see Projects). ### Why it matters to employers An engineer's training — first principles, measurement, standards and safety — under all of Jenks's later work. It is why he is comfortable going from a circuit to a cloud API to an AI agent. ## Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) — Brighton Grammar School (2009 — 2010) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/career/brighton-grammar - Tags: engineering - Summary: Completed VCE at Brighton Grammar School with an ENTER of 90.20. - Key result: ENTER score of 90.20 ### Overview Jenks completed his final school years in Melbourne at Brighton Grammar School, achieving an ENTER (university entrance) score of 90.20 — while also starting his first hospitality jobs. # Community & governance ## President, School Council (previously Treasurer) — Murrumbeena Primary School (Treasurer (2 years) → President (now)) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/community/murrumbeena-school-council - Tags: community, business, consulting · Role lenses: ai-transformation-consultant, engineering-manager - Summary: President of the Murrumbeena Primary School Council after two years as its Treasurer — school governance, finances and the community campaign for a new hall. - Key result: Elected President of the School Council after two years as Treasurer - Key result: Leads the community campaign for a new multipurpose school hall - Skills: Board governance, Financial oversight, Budgeting, Stakeholder management, Advocacy, Strategic planning, Public sector engagement - Proof (site): A Hall for Murrumbeena — campaign site — https://hallformurrumbeena.win ### Overview Victorian government school councils are the governing boards of their schools: they set strategic direction, approve budgets and policies, and represent the school community. Jenks served two years as Treasurer of the Murrumbeena Primary School Council and is now its President. ### What Jenks does - Chairs the council and works with the principal on strategy, policy and community engagement. - As Treasurer, oversaw the school council's finances, budget and financial reporting. - Leads the parent and community campaign to win state funding for a competition-grade multipurpose hall and community hub — research, costing, letters, petitions, stakeholder meetings and an AI- and agent-friendly campaign platform he built (see Projects). ### Why it matters to employers This is real boardroom experience: governance, fiduciary oversight, chairing meetings and leading volunteers toward a public-funding outcome. It complements Jenks's corporate roles with evidence of board-level judgement and community leadership. ## Organiser — DevRel Australia Meetup Group (Ongoing) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/community/devrel-australia-meetup - Tags: community, devrel · Role lenses: developer-advocate, developer-evangelist - Summary: Organiser of DevRel Australia — the meetup group for Australia's developer relations profession. - Key result: Organises the meetup for the developer relations profession in Australia - Skills: Community building, Event organising, Speaker curation, Industry networking - Proof (article): How to start a technical community (Medium) — https://jenksguo.medium.com/how-to-start-a-technical-community-a75d23acb67c ### Overview DevRel Australia is a meetup group for people who work in developer relations — advocates, evangelists, community managers, technical writers and DevRel leaders. ### What Jenks does - Organises meetups and talks, and connects practitioners across companies. - Shares practice openly, including his guide "How to start a technical community". ### Why it matters to employers Community organising is DevRel's core skill, done here for the profession itself. It also gives Jenks a wide Australian network of developer-facing leaders. ## Treasurer & Vice President, Parents Committee — Virginia Park Childcare Association (2019 — 2024 (5 years)) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/community/virginia-park-childcare - Tags: community, business · Role lenses: engineering-manager, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: Five years as Treasurer and Vice President of a parent-run, not-for-profit childcare association — finances, governance and committee leadership. - Key result: Five years on the committee as Treasurer and Vice President - Skills: Not-for-profit governance, Treasury, Budgeting, Committee leadership, Parent engagement ### Overview Virginia Park Childcare Association is a not-for-profit childcare service governed by a parents committee. Jenks served on the committee for about five years as Treasurer and as Vice President. ### What Jenks did - Managed the association's treasury: budgets, financial reports and oversight for the committee. - As Vice President, supported the president and led committee work with families and staff. ### Why it matters to employers Five years of continuous not-for-profit board service shows reliability and financial stewardship — the kind of trust organisations give only to people who deliver. ## Technical Mentor — Victorian Government Digital Jobs Program (2023) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/community/vic-digital-jobs-mentor - Tags: community, it · Role lenses: engineering-manager, developer-advocate - Summary: Technical mentor in the Victorian Government's Digital Jobs Program, helping mid-career Victorians move into digital roles. - Key result: Mentored a participant in the state's mid-career digital reskilling program - Skills: Mentoring, Career coaching, Digital skills ### Overview The Digital Jobs Program reskills mid-career Victorians into digital jobs, supported by hundreds of technical mentors. Jenks was one of them and was featured by the program. ### Why it matters to employers Mentoring is a habit for Jenks: six Ericsson graduates, DevRel team members, and program participants. Good leaders grow people. ## Treasurer, Executive Committee — Tooronga Toastmasters Club Inc. (2020 — 2021 (2 years)) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/community/tooronga-toastmasters - Tags: community, business · Role lenses: developer-evangelist, developer-advocate - Summary: Two years as Treasurer on the executive committee of Tooronga Toastmasters Club, helping the new club achieve its charter through the COVID years. - Key result: Two years as Treasurer; helped the club achieve its charter during COVID - Skills: Public speaking, Club treasury, Executive committee, Club chartering, Facilitation ### Overview Toastmasters International clubs help members build public speaking and leadership skills. Jenks was Treasurer on the executive committee of Tooronga Toastmasters Club Inc. — named after the Melbourne suburb of Tooronga — for two years. The club no longer meets. ### What Jenks did - Managed the club's finances as Treasurer. - Helped the club through the chartering process during COVID, when meetings moved online. - Practised and coached prepared and impromptu speaking. ### Why it matters to employers Jenks's comfort on conference stages was trained deliberately. Helping a club charter in a pandemic is a small but real example of starting an organisation from zero. # Project ## This site — an agent-friendly résumé — Personal (2026-10 — present) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/jenksguo-xyz - Tags: ai, it · Role lenses: head-of-ai, developer-advocate - Summary: This site — a résumé built for humans and AI agents, with a tool-using assistant, voice, seven languages and machine-readable files. - Key result: Ask Jenks assistant with retrieval tools and distilled skills - Key result: Seven languages; llms.txt, JSON Resume, OpenAPI for agents - Skills: Next.js, Cloudflare Workers, OpenRouter, Tool-calling agents, llms.txt, i18n ### What it is A personal site where employers can read the full story, filter experience by industry and role, and ask an AI assistant grounded in a structured corpus. Agents get llms.txt, a JSON Resume and an OpenAPI-described chat API. ## A Hall for Murrumbeena — AI- and agent-friendly campaign platform — Murrumbeena Primary School community (2026) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/hall-for-murrumbeena-platform - Tags: community, ai, it · Role lenses: head-of-ai, ai-transformation-consultant, solution-architect - Summary: Built the community campaign platform for a new school hall — petition and support flows, a voice-enabled AI assistant and an MCP interface so AI agents can help too. - Key result: Public campaign site with petition, support letters, endorsements and pledges - Key result: AI chat assistant with voice and an MCP interface for AI agents - Skills: Cloudflare Workers, D1, R2, AI chat & voice, MCP, Knowledge base, Civic tech, Advocacy - Proof (site): hallformurrumbeena.win — https://hallformurrumbeena.win ### The problem A parent-led campaign needed to win about $12–14M of state funding for a multipurpose school hall and community hub — with volunteers, little money and a short political window. ### What Jenks built A full Cloudflare stack (Workers, D1, R2, Email Routing, Access): petition mirror, wall of support, community ideas, organisational endorsements with letter uploads, pledges, news and an admin console — plus an AI chat assistant with voice grounded in a campaign knowledge base, and an MCP endpoint and CLI so AI agents can read and act on the campaign. ### Why it matters Civic technology built on the same patterns Jenks uses at work: knowledge base, agent interface, human approval for actions. It shows initiative — nobody asked him to build it. ## Company AI knowledge base & tiered agent system — Babylon Labs (2026-03 — present) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/babylon-ai-knowledge-system - Tags: ai, it · Role lenses: head-of-ai, ai-transformation-consultant, solution-architect - Summary: A company-wide AI knowledge base and tiered agent system with human-in-the-loop checkpoints and agent-to-agent communication. - Key result: Company-wide knowledge base feeding AI assistants and agents - Key result: Tiered autonomy with human-in-the-loop checkpoints - Skills: Retrieval, Knowledge management, Agent orchestration, Human-in-the-loop, Agent-to-agent, AI governance ### The problem Staff used AI tools individually, without company context, consistent safety or cost control. ### What Jenks is building - A company knowledge base that AI assistants and agents can retrieve from. - Tiered agents: autonomous for low-risk tasks, human approval for higher-risk actions. - Agent-to-agent communication between internal systems. - Shared governance: model routing, credentials, audit and spend controls. ### Why it matters This is the reference architecture Jenks brings to other organisations: knowledge first, then agents, then governance and economics. ## APAC builders funnel — hackathons, accelerators & grants — Filecoin Foundation (2022-03 — 2024-08) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/filecoin-builders-funnel - Tags: web3, devrel, community · Role lenses: developer-advocate, ai-transformation-consultant - Summary: Ran the APAC side of Filecoin's builders funnel — from hackathons and grants to accelerators and VC introductions. - Key result: 100+ hackathons, 12+ accelerators - Key result: $1M+ prizes allocated; grants up to $200K reviewed - Skills: Program design, Grant evaluation, Hackathon judging, Accelerator partnerships ### What it is A funnel that takes developers from first idea to funded project: hackathons and grants ("public funds for public goods") at the top, then accelerators, startups and VCs for established teams. ### Jenks's part Supported 100+ hackathons and 12+ accelerator programs, judged and mentored teams, evaluated grant applications, helped allocate $1M+ in prizes and reviewed funding requests of up to $200K. ## Linktree developer platform — APIs, SDKs, portal & app store — Linktree (2021-05 — 2022-03) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/linktree-developer-platform - Tags: it, devrel, business · Role lenses: engineering-manager, solution-architect, developer-advocate - Summary: Turned ~200 integration requests into one platform — 3 APIs, SDKs, a developer portal and app-store integrations for a 24-million-user creator platform. - Key result: 3 APIs, SDKs, a developer portal and app-store integrations - Key result: 30+ contractors from 5 agencies, including Thoughtworks - Skills: API design, SDKs, Developer portal, App store integrations, Vendor orchestration ### The problem About 200 companies wanted to integrate with Linktree. Building 200 bespoke features was impossible to maintain. ### What Jenks built An ecosystem strategy and a platform: three APIs, SDKs, a developer portal and app-store integrations, delivered by an ecosystem engineering team, product managers and 30+ contractors from five agencies including Thoughtworks — plus a new DevRel team and developer community. ### Why it matters "Platform, not one-offs" is the lesson Jenks now applies to AI: a shared knowledge base and tooling layer instead of hundreds of disconnected chatbots. ## Machine-learning-powered API governance (apidays talk) — Xero (2020) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/api-governance-ml - Tags: ai, it, devrel · Role lenses: head-of-ai, solution-architect, developer-evangelist - Summary: Applied anomaly detection and clustering to partner API usage to catch governance problems early — presented at apidays LIVE Jakarta. - Key result: Presented at apidays LIVE Jakarta - Skills: Anomaly detection, Clustering, API analytics, Platform governance - Proof (talk): Slides — Machine Learning powered API governance — https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/apidays-live-jakarta-machine-learning-powered-api-governance-by-jenks-guo/239076531 ### The idea As platforms grow, partners quietly change how they use APIs — which can cause incidents, security issues and broken expectations. Self-reporting does not scale. ### The approach Treat API usage as data: anomaly detection and clustering analysis on partner API traffic to spot unexpected use cases early, so governance teams can act before an incident. ### Why it matters An early example (2020) of Jenks applying machine learning to an operational platform problem — years before the current AI wave. ## Remote automated mobile testing platform — Ericsson Australia (2015 — 2018) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/ericsson-remote-test-automation - Tags: it · Role lenses: system-integrator, support-engineer, solution-architect - Summary: Led and built remote, automated mobile testing (SIGOS) for a telecom billing platform — saving tens of thousands of dollars a year and raising release confidence. - Key result: Saved tens of thousands of dollars a year - Key result: Higher quality and confidence in the carrier's market product - Skills: Test automation, SIGOS, Remote device testing, Telecom BSS, Quality engineering ### The problem Every change to a carrier's charging and billing platform had to be proven on real mobile phones, which was slow, manual and expensive. ### What Jenks built Jenks led and developed a remote, automated testing platform and service: automated test runs via SIGOS and maintained, upgraded remote mobile-phone testing resources, with unit and robotic test automation around the integration layer. ### Results Savings of tens of thousands of dollars a year, higher quality and more confidence in the customer's product — sold as a value-adding service beyond the existing managed-services contract. ## Innovation at Ericsson — hackathon, RMIT IoT research & graduate mentoring — Ericsson Australia (2015 — 2018) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/ericsson-innovation-program - Tags: it, community, engineering · Role lenses: engineering-manager, developer-advocate - Summary: Drove ANZ-level innovation at Ericsson — organised a company hackathon, led an IoT research engagement with RMIT University and mentored six graduates. - Key result: Organised a company-level hackathon - Key result: Led an IoT research engagement with RMIT University - Key result: Mentored 6 graduates - Skills: Hackathon organising, Research partnerships, IoT, Mentoring, Innovation management ### What Jenks did - Organised a company-level hackathon and drove ANZ-level innovation processes and activities. - Led Ericsson's engagement in an IoT research project with RMIT University. - Mentored six graduates and accelerated their growth. - Built an internal BI tool that Ericsson developed into a global tool. ### Why it matters Before Jenks had "developer relations" in his title, he was already running hackathons, partnering with universities and mentoring — the foundations of his DevRel career. ## Innovation learning platform & half a billion email lessons — School of Thinking (2011-07 — 2015-02) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/sot-innovation-platform - Tags: it, marketing, business · Role lenses: ict-specialist, digital-marketer, solution-architect - Summary: Built and ran School of Thinking's online innovation platform — six blue-chip enterprise customers, half a billion email lessons, operating costs cut to a third. - Key result: 6 Australian blue-chip companies onboarded - Key result: 500,000,000 email lessons delivered - Key result: Operations cost cut to one third - Skills: WordPress, MOOC platform, Email marketing automation, Infrastructure migration, Vendor management, Cost optimisation ### The problem School of Thinking needed to deliver thinking-skills and innovation programs at scale to enterprise customers with 500+ employees, plus a very large public email course — on a small budget. ### What Jenks built - An online innovation (MOOC) platform for enterprise programs on a customised WordPress stack. - Large-scale email course delivery through email-marketing systems (Aweber). - Migrated and upgraded the infrastructure; coordinated contractors in Australia and the USA. - Ran two cost audits. ### Results Six Australian blue-chip companies onboarded; half a billion lessons delivered; operations cost reduced to one third. ## Linux Smart Energy Meter (final-year honours project) — University of Melbourne × Metropolis Metering Assets Pty Ltd (2013-02 — 2013-11) - Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/projects/smart-energy-meter - Tags: engineering, it · Role lenses: solution-architect, system-integrator, ict-specialist - Summary: Industry-sponsored honours project — a working Linux-based smart energy meter that met Australian Standards accuracy and reported over GSM cellular networks. - Key result: Working prototype compliant with Australian metering standards - Key result: Remote connectivity over GSM cellular networks - Skills: Embedded Linux, Power measurement, Noise filtering, GSM cellular communications, PCB design, Australian Standards compliance, Prototyping ### Overview Jenks's year-long final-year project was sponsored by Metropolis Metering Assets, an Australian metering company. The brief: design and build a smart energy meter that runs Linux, measures accurately to Australian Standards, and communicates over the mobile network. ### What Jenks built - A working prototype of a Linux OS-based smart energy meter. - Metering performance compliant with the relevant Australian Standards, with high-accuracy measurement achieved through noise filtering. - Network capability integrated via cellular GSM communication. - Hands-on work across power systems, embedded systems, PCB design and electronic prototyping. ### Why it matters It is an end-to-end systems project — hardware, firmware, measurement, standards and connectivity — delivered for an industry sponsor. The same instinct (instrument it, make it accurate, connect it) shows up in Jenks's later telecom, API and AI work. The thesis paper and photos of the device will be published here. # Role lenses ## Head of AI Strategy, architecture, governance and adoption — AI as an organisational capability. Jenks leads company-wide AI transformation at Babylon Labs: knowledge base, tiered agents with human-in-the-loop, agent-to-agent communication, model routing, security and AI spend. He brings a decade of platform thinking (Xero, Linktree), engineering discipline (Ericsson) and an early record of applying ML to platforms (API-governance talk, 2020). **Gaps to probe:** the AI Lead title dates from 2026; no public evidence of a large permanent AI team, a company P&L or ML research publications. ## AI transformation Diagnose, design and deliver AI adoption — for companies and community organisations. Consulting runs through Jenks's career: technology consultancy as School of Thinking's CTO, digital marketing consulting (Seagull Gifts), business development (OHMEDIA), presales at Ericsson, partner advisory at Xero, platform strategy at Linktree and grant due diligence at Filecoin — "500+ tech start-ups helped". Today he applies it to AI: knowledge-first architecture, tiered agents, governance and spend. Bilingual delivery in English and Mandarin. **Gaps to probe:** no public record of running an independent consultancy business. ## Engineering manager Leads engineers, contractors and agencies to ship platforms on deadline. Led an ecosystem engineering team and PMs plus 30+ contractors from five agencies at Linktree; directed ~30 offshore engineers and testers at Ericsson; manages the DevRel team at Babylon; mentored six graduates. Earlier, managed a café team. **Gaps to probe:** the large teams were mostly contractors/offshore; check expectations for in-house line management of a big engineering org. ## Solution architect Enterprise integration design, interfaces, acceptance criteria and presales. Enterprise and telecom system design, interface design and acceptance documentation (Ericsson); architecture reviews and acceptance criteria; zero-downtime legacy migration; AWS Certified Solutions Architect; platform and API architecture at Linktree; AI reference architecture at Babylon; presales with SPIN selling. **Gaps to probe:** recent years were leadership and DevRel rather than full-time architecture. ## System integrator Makes complex systems talk — telecom BSS, CRMs, APIs, networks. Integrated MVNO CRMs with a carrier's charging and billing suite over SOAP web services; network connectivity planning and testing; change approval board; certification testing of partner integrations at Xero; embedded GSM integration in his engineering project. CCNA certified. **Gaps to probe:** hands-on integration work is strongest in 2015–2021. ## Support engineer Level-4 support, defect triage, incidents and 100% SLAs. Managed-services support on a critical charging platform with up to ~¾ million live users: assisting L2/L3 and the service desk, defect triage, incident mitigation and PIRs, SQL reporting, patch verification, automation of repetitive tasks; partner API support at Xero. Customer-first habits from years of hospitality. ## ICT specialist Runs an organisation's whole technology estate — web, servers, email, vendors. Ran School of Thinking's ICT for almost four years: web apps and servers, CMS, email delivery at massive scale, migrations, vendors and on-call. Web and infrastructure roles at Plexus and Ericsson; Linux/RHEL, networking (CCNA), cloud (AWS, OpenStack), SQL. ## Developer advocate Developer experience, documentation, community and programs — Web2 and Web3. Developer Advocate at Filecoin Foundation (docs, DX, 100+ hackathons, grants, open source); Head of Developer Relations at Babylon Labs; started DevRel at Linktree; organiser of DevRel Australia; podcasts and conference talks across APAC. ## Developer evangelist Grows API ecosystems — partners, certification, content and sales enablement. Developer Evangelist at Xero for three years (partners 500+ → 1,000+), certification testing, partner support, SDK/OpenAPI work, videos, blogs and apidays talks; trained speaker (Toastmasters). ## Digital marketer SEO/SEM, AdWords, analytics, EDM, e-commerce and bilingual content. Digital Marketing Consultant at Seagull Gifts (SEO/SEM, AdWords, Magento, EDMs), Web Developer & Digital Marketer at Plexus, bilingual content and Weibo/Facebook marketing at Spytorch, email marketing at School of Thinking scale; later developer marketing, talks and content at Xero, Linktree and Filecoin. Content strategy certificate (Lynda.com). **Gaps to probe:** dedicated marketing roles were 2012–2014; recent marketing is developer marketing. ## Hospitality Barista, café manager, fine-dining waiter and bartender — service under pressure. Manager/barista at Theobroma Chocolate Lounge (ran the café with the owner and built the team), fine dining at Tanglong, bartending at Chapelli's, barista apprenticeship at Deep Fish Café and waiting at Dendy Deli (2009–2011). RSA and Safe Food Handling certified; serves Mandarin-speaking guests natively. # The case for Jenks (arguments) ## AI transformation Claim: Jenks can lead AI transformation in most kinds of organisations, because what usually breaks AI programs — integration, governance and adoption — is what his career has trained. Form: Inductive argument from track record, plus inference to the best explanation of why AI programs fail. Strength: Strong for technology-forward and platform-heavy organisations; moderate for heavily regulated domains, where a domain partner is needed. Source: MIT NANDA, The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 (via Fortune, 18 Aug 2025) — https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/ Source: BCG, Where's the Value in AI? (24 Oct 2024) — https://www.bcg.com/press/24october2024-ai-adoption-in-2024-74-of-companies-struggle-to-achieve-and-scale-value Source: McKinsey, The state of AI in 2025 — https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai Source: MuleSoft (Salesforce), 2025 Connectivity Benchmark Report (29 Jan 2025) — https://www.salesforce.com/blog/mulesoft-connectivity-benchmark-2025/ ### The argument - **P1 (market).** Most organisations already use AI, but few get value from it. McKinsey (2025): 88% use AI in at least one business function. BCG (2024): 74% have yet to show tangible value. MIT NANDA (2025): about 95% of generative-AI pilots show little or no measurable P&L impact. - **P2 (cause).** The main cause is not the model. MIT NANDA traces the failures to a "learning gap": generic tools that never integrate with company systems and workflows. MuleSoft (2025): 95% of organisations struggle to integrate AI into existing processes, and 80% name data integration as the biggest obstacle. - **P3 (capability).** So the scarce capability is a leader who can (a) connect AI to real systems and data, (b) govern it, and (c) drive adoption across teams. - **P4 (evidence).** Jenks has done all three, repeatedly: he leads a company-wide AI program at Babylon Labs (knowledge base, tiered agents, governance, AI spend); he spent a decade on integration and platforms (Ericsson, Xero, Linktree); and he has run adoption programs for developers and partners at four companies. - **P5 (transfer).** He has done this in five industries — telecom, accounting SaaS, the creator economy, Web3 infrastructure and education — so the skill does not depend on one domain. - **C.** Therefore Jenks is a strong candidate to lead AI transformation in most organisations, with a domain partner in heavily regulated fields. Form: P1–P3 are an inference to the best explanation (why AI programs fail); P4–P5 are an inductive argument from track record. The conclusion is probable, not certain, and it is stated with a qualifier. ### Evidence and numbers - Babylon Labs, AI Lead (since March 2026): company-wide AI transformation across engineering and non-engineering teams; owns AI architecture, infrastructure, governance and AI Ops spend; built a company knowledge base and tiered agents with human-in-the-loop checkpoints ([AI Lead](/career/babylon-ai-lead), [the system](/projects/babylon-ai-knowledge-system)). - AI economics in practice: he asks when a per-developer AI budget of about $20k a year pays back, and allocates spend between teams and models. - Integration depth: individually responsible for a $10M+ telecom charging and billing service with ~0.5M active users (later ~0.75M) across 12 enterprise customers; 100% of onboarding SLAs met ([Ericsson](/career/ericsson-integration-engineer)). - Platform thinking: turned ~200 partner integration requests into one platform — 3 APIs, SDKs, a developer portal and app-store integrations for a 24-million-user product ([Linktree](/projects/linktree-developer-platform)). - Adoption at scale: helped grow Xero's partner ecosystem from 500+ to 1,000+ in three years ([Xero](/career/xero-developer-evangelist)). - Machine learning before the hype: anomaly detection and clustering for API governance, presented at apidays in 2020 ([talk](/projects/api-governance-ml)). - Built two working AI products himself: the Hall for Murrumbeena campaign platform (voice AI assistant + MCP) and this agent-friendly site ([project](/projects/hall-for-murrumbeena-platform)). ### Limits (stated plainly) - The formal AI Lead title dates from 2026; the company-wide AI remit is recent. Platform and ecosystem leadership is long-standing. - No public outcome metrics yet for the Babylon AI program (time saved, cost per task). - Not an ML researcher; he does not train foundation models. - No evidence of P&L ownership or of leading AI in healthcare, banking or government, where regulation shapes the work. ### Fair objections and answers - **"The AI track record is short."** (attacks P4) — True for the title. Answer: the transferable parts — integration, platforms, governance, adoption — have 10+ years of evidence; the AI program applies them. Weigh the parts by how much they explain failure (P2). - **"Failure statistics come from surveys and vendor reports."** (attacks P1–P2) — Fair. MuleSoft sells integration software and MIT NANDA's sample is 150 interviews, 350 employees and 300 deployments. Answer: four independent sources (MIT, BCG, McKinsey, MuleSoft) point the same way, and the argument needs only the direction, not an exact percentage. - **"Our industry is different."** (attacks P5) — Sometimes right. Answer: name the specific constraint (regulation, safety, data residency). If it is domain knowledge, pair Jenks with a domain expert; if it is regulation, check the governance design first. ### Fallacious attacks and replies - **Hasty generalisation (informal):** "One company is not enough to call him a transformation leader." — The case rests on 7 entries across 5 industries, not one. Reply: point to the breadth. - **Appeal to credentials / genetic fallacy (informal):** "He has no AI PhD, so he can't lead AI." — Where a skill came from does not decide whether he has it; transformation failures are integration and adoption failures (P2). Reply: ask which part of the program needs a PhD. - **No true Scotsman (informal):** "A *real* Head of AI has run a 50-person ML team." — This redefines the role to exclude the evidence. Reply: agree on the role's actual requirements first. - **Denying the antecedent (formal):** "If someone has published ML research, they can lead AI. Jenks has not, so he cannot." — The form *if R then L; not R; so not L* is invalid: R is offered as one sufficient route to L, not the only one. Reply: ask whether research is truly *necessary*, and show the other routes (P3–P4). - **Affirming the consequent (formal):** "Failed AI programs had leaders without research backgrounds. Jenks has no research background, so his program will fail." — *If F then N; N; so F* is invalid. Reply: the premise never says that only such leaders fail — the trait can be just as common in programs that succeed. Point to the cause the evidence names: integration and adoption (P2). - **Moving the goalposts (informal):** after the evidence answers one requirement, a new one appears. Reply: list the requirements once, then rate each (Strong / Partial / Gap). ### When this argument does not apply — say so - The role is foundation-model research, ML-scientist work or a PhD-required research lead. - The organisation wants a single AI feature built fast, with no change to how teams work: a senior engineer or an agency fits better. - The role needs deep regulated-domain expertise from day one with no domain partner. ## Agentic system engineering Claim: Jenks can design and ship agentic systems that survive production, because he builds in the controls whose absence makes most agent projects fail — tiered autonomy, human approval, governance and cost routing. Form: Deductive core (if failures come from missing controls, and his designs include those controls, then his designs avoid those failures) supported by inductive evidence that he has shipped working systems. Strength: Strong for applied agent systems inside organisations; not evidence for model training or ML research. Source: Gartner, Over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by end of 2027 (25 Jun 2025) — https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-06-25-gartner-predicts-over-40-percent-of-agentic-ai-projects-will-be-canceled-by-end-of-2027 Source: Gartner, Applying uniform governance across AI agents will lead to enterprise AI agent failure (26 May 2026) — https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-05-26-gartner-says-applying-uniform-governance-across-ai-agents-will-lead-to-enterprise-ai-agent-failure Source: McKinsey, The state of AI in 2025 — https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai Source: MuleSoft (Salesforce), 2025 Connectivity Benchmark Report (29 Jan 2025) — https://www.salesforce.com/blog/mulesoft-connectivity-benchmark-2025/ ### The argument - **P1 (demand).** Organisations are moving to agents: MuleSoft (2025) reports 94% of IT decision-makers plan autonomous agents within two years; McKinsey (2025) finds 23% already scaling an agentic system somewhere, but no more than 10% in any single function. - **P2 (failure causes).** Gartner (2025) predicts over 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027 because of escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls. Gartner (2026) adds that applying one uniform governance model to all agents is the root cause of failure: agents at different autonomy levels need different controls. - **P3 (design).** Jenks's agent architecture is built around those three causes: risk-tiered autonomy with human-in-the-loop checkpoints (risk controls that differ by tier), model routing and spend controls (cost), and a company knowledge base that grounds agents in real work (value). - **P4 (delivery).** He has shipped working agent interfaces, not only designs: remote and local MCP servers, a CLI, OpenAPI and a tool-using assistant with retrieval and skills on this site; an AI assistant with voice, an MCP endpoint and a CLI for the Hall for Murrumbeena campaign; and agent-to-agent communication between internal systems at Babylon Labs. - **P5 (foundations).** Agents are API clients with judgement. Jenks has a decade of API work: SDKs, OpenAPI specifications and code generation at Xero; three APIs and SDKs at Linktree. - **C.** Therefore Jenks can design and ship agentic systems that are likely to survive production in an organisation. Form: P2 + P3 give a deductive core (the named failure causes are addressed by design); P4–P5 are inductive support that he can deliver. The conclusion stays probabilistic: design reduces, not removes, the risk. ### Evidence and numbers - Tiered agent system with human-in-the-loop checkpoints, agent-to-agent communication, model routing, credentials, audit and spend controls ([Babylon AI system](/projects/babylon-ai-knowledge-system)). - Owns AI architecture, infrastructure, governance and AI Ops budgets for the whole company ([AI Lead](/career/babylon-ai-lead)). - Security in the architecture: credentials never in prompts, least-privilege tools, audit trails. - This site: an agent platform from one spec — remote MCP servers, REST API, OpenAPI, a CLI that is also a local MCP server, and a tool-using assistant ([jenksguo.xyz](/projects/jenksguo-xyz)). - Hall for Murrumbeena: AI assistant with voice grounded in a campaign knowledge base, plus an MCP endpoint and CLI so agents can act — with human approval for actions ([project](/projects/hall-for-murrumbeena-platform)). - API foundations: SDKs, OpenAPI and code generation at Xero; 3 APIs and SDKs at Linktree. ### Limits (stated plainly) - Production agent outcomes at Babylon (task volumes, error rates, savings) are not public. - The agent systems are at one company plus two self-built platforms — not yet many enterprises. - He builds on frontier models; he does not train or fine-tune models at research depth. ### Fair objections and answers - **"Designs are not results."** (attacks P3) — Fair. Answer: P4 shows shipped, running systems with public interfaces anyone can test (this site's MCP server, for example). Ask for a technical walk-through. - **"Gartner predictions are forecasts, not facts."** (attacks P2) — True. Answer: the argument uses the *causes* Gartner names, which match common engineering experience; the percentage is context, not a premise the conclusion depends on. - **"Small projects don't prove enterprise scale."** (attacks P4) — Partly right. Answer: the enterprise-scale evidence is the integration work (P5 and the Ericsson service for 12 enterprise customers); the agent evidence shows the patterns work. Scale-up is a Partial, not a Gap. ### Fallacious attacks and replies - **Appeal to novelty (informal):** "Agents are brand new, so nobody has real experience." — The newness of a technology does not erase the experience that transfers to it (APIs, integration, governance). Reply: name the transferable parts. - **Straw man (informal):** "So he just wires ChatGPT to a chatbot." — Misstates P3–P4 (tiered autonomy, routing, audit, MCP servers). Reply: restate the actual architecture. - **False dilemma (informal):** "Either fully autonomous agents or no agents." — Tiered autonomy is the third option, and Gartner (2026) names the binary view as the cause of failure. - **Undistributed middle (formal):** "Failed agent projects use LLMs. Jenks's projects use LLMs. So Jenks's projects are failed agent projects." — Sharing a property does not make two things the same. Reply: compare the controls, not the model. ### When this argument does not apply — say so - The role is model research, training infrastructure at frontier scale, or ML-scientist work. - The organisation wants a single prompt-based feature with no integration, governance or adoption work — a strong individual engineer is a better fit. ## Leadership Claim: Jenks is a proven leader of people and organisations — he has led teams, vendors and boards in paid and volunteer settings for fifteen years, and keeps being chosen to lead. Form: Inductive argument from a consistent pattern across many independent contexts (convergent evidence), plus an argument from selection (others repeatedly chose him to lead). Strength: Strong for team, program and function leadership; moderate for very large organisations (no evidence of leading hundreds of permanent staff). Source: Gallup, Managers account for 70% of variance in employee engagement — https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236570/managers-account-percent-variance-employee-engagement.aspx Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2018 — https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2018 ### The argument - **P1 (why it matters).** Leadership quality drives results: Gallup finds that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement. - **P2 (people).** Jenks has led people in very different settings: a café team as manager; about 30 offshore engineers and testers daily at Ericsson; an ecosystem engineering team, product managers and 30+ contractors from five agencies (including Thoughtworks) at Linktree; and the DevRel team he recruited at Babylon Labs. - **P3 (organisations).** He has held accountable, organisation-level roles: contracted CTO of School of Thinking from about age 21 (strategy, vendors in Australia and the US, budget); President of the Murrumbeena Primary School Council after two years as its Treasurer; Treasurer and Vice President of the Virginia Park Childcare Association for about five years; a seat on Ericsson's change approval board. - **P4 (selection).** In volunteer settings, leaders are chosen by peers, not by an employer. Jenks was elected or appointed to lead in three separate community organisations. - **P5 (growing people).** He mentors as a habit: six Ericsson graduates, DevRel team members, and a participant in the Victorian Government's Digital Jobs Program. - **C.** Therefore leadership is a stable, demonstrated trait of Jenks's, not a claim tied to one job title. Form: convergent inductive evidence — many independent contexts (paid and unpaid, technical and non-technical, Australia and offshore) point to the same trait. Independence is what gives the pattern its strength. ### Evidence and numbers - Ericsson: coordinated ~30 offshore engineers and testers daily; 100% of onboarding SLAs met for 12 enterprise customers ([Ericsson](/career/ericsson-integration-engineer)). - Linktree: 30+ contractors across two product pods and five agencies, plus an ecosystem engineering team and product managers, on a tight deadline ([Linktree](/career/linktree-partner-solutions-lead)). - Babylon Labs: built and leads the DevRel function — community engineers, developer advocates, technical writers and partner engineers ([Head of DevRel](/career/babylon-head-of-devrel)). - School of Thinking: technology accountability at ~21; two cost audits cut operating costs to one third ([CTO](/career/school-of-thinking-cto)). - Governance: School Council President (after 2 years as Treasurer); ~5 years Treasurer and Vice President of a childcare association; Toastmasters treasurer who helped the club charter. - Leadership style: Gallup StrengthsFinder "Executing"; motto "I lead by helping my team glow." ### Limits (stated plainly) - No evidence of leading hundreds of permanent staff or owning a company P&L. - Team sizes beyond "~30" are not public; no engagement or retention scores are public. ### Fair objections and answers - **"Coordinating contractors is not people management."** (attacks P2) — Partly fair. Answer: the Babylon DevRel team and the café team are direct reports; contractor and offshore work shows a different, harder skill — leading people you cannot hire or fire. - **"Volunteer boards are low stakes."** (attacks P3) — Answer: school councils approve budgets and policy and carry fiduciary duty; the hall campaign seeks about $12–14M of public funding. The stakes are real, and the leadership must work without pay or authority. - **"Self-described style proves nothing."** (attacks the motto) — Agreed; it is colour, not a premise. The conclusion rests on P2–P4. ### Fallacious attacks and replies - **Composition (informal):** "Each role was small, so his leadership is small." — Properties of the parts do not automatically transfer to the whole; the pattern across many contexts is the evidence. - **Ad hominem (informal):** "He worked in cafés — not executive material." — Attacks the person's background, not the evidence; the café role is one of many data points, and it was a manager role. - **Tu quoque (informal):** "Every candidate says they are a leader." — Others' claims do not make this evidence weaker. Reply: compare evidence, not claims. - **Affirming the consequent (formal):** "Weak leaders lean on contractors. Jenks's teams used contractors. So Jenks is a weak leader." — *If W then C; C; so W* is invalid: strong leaders use contractors too. Reply: name the form and ask for evidence about W itself. - **Valid form, false premise (unsound):** "Great leaders have big titles; his titles are modest; so he isn't a great leader." — This *is* valid (modus tollens), so do not call it a formal fallacy. Its flaw is the premise: leadership is shown by behaviour and results, not by title size. Reply: challenge the premise with P2–P4. ### When this argument does not apply — say so - The role needs proven leadership of several hundred people or a business unit P&L from day one. - The role is a pure individual-contributor position with no leadership component — Jenks's strengths would be under-used, and he would say so. ## Enterprise integration Claim: Jenks can connect AI and new platforms to real enterprise systems, because he has done enterprise integration hands-on (telecom billing) and built integration platforms (APIs, SDKs, certification) at scale. Form: Practical syllogism (the goal needs integration; integration needs this experience; Jenks has it) supported by inductive track-record evidence. Strength: Strong for API-, platform- and BSS-style integration; moderate for vendor-specific suites (no SAP, Salesforce or MuleSoft certification in the corpus). Source: MuleSoft (Salesforce), 2025 Connectivity Benchmark Report (29 Jan 2025) — https://www.salesforce.com/blog/mulesoft-connectivity-benchmark-2025/ Source: MIT NANDA, The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 (via Fortune, 18 Aug 2025) — https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/ ### The argument - **P1 (the gap).** MuleSoft (2025, 1,050+ IT leaders): the average enterprise runs 897 applications but only 29% are integrated; only 2% have connected more than half. 90% report business obstacles from data silos. - **P2 (why it matters for AI).** The same report: 95% struggle to integrate AI into existing processes and 80% name data integration as the biggest obstacle. MIT NANDA (2025) finds that pilots stall when tools never integrate with company systems and workflows. - **P3 (the integrator side).** At Ericsson, Jenks was individually responsible for service delivery on a $10M+ charging and billing platform for a top-tier Australian carrier: onboarding MVNO resellers, integrating their CRMs with the carrier's business support system, SOAP web services, network changes, change-board risk analysis and level-4 support. - **P4 (the platform side).** At Xero he ran partner integration certification, API support, SDKs and OpenAPI code generation for an ecosystem that grew from 500+ to 1,000+ partners; at Linktree he turned ~200 integration requests into 3 APIs, SDKs, a developer portal and app-store integrations. - **P5 (applied to AI).** At Babylon Labs he connects AI to company knowledge and internal systems: a knowledge base for assistants and agents, and agent-to-agent communication. - **C.** Therefore Jenks is well placed to close the integration gap that blocks enterprise AI. Form: a practical syllogism (goal → necessary means → agent who has the means), with P3–P5 as inductive evidence that he has the means on both sides of an integration. ### Evidence and numbers - $10M+ solution; ~0.5M active users (later ~0.75M); 12 enterprise customers; ~30 offshore engineers and testers; 100% of onboarding SLAs met ([Ericsson](/career/ericsson-integration-engineer)). - Remote automated mobile testing (SIGOS) that saved tens of thousands of dollars a year ([project](/projects/ericsson-remote-test-automation)). - Xero ecosystem 500+ → 1,000+ partners; certification testing and reviews ([Xero](/career/xero-developer-evangelist)). - Linktree: ~200 integration requests → one platform for a 24-million-user product; 30+ contractors from five agencies ([platform](/projects/linktree-developer-platform)). - Integration governance with machine learning: anomaly detection on partner API traffic (2020) ([talk](/projects/api-governance-ml)). - Skills: SOAP/REST, SQL/Oracle, RHEL, networking (CCNA), AWS Solutions Architect – Associate. ### Limits (stated plainly) - No vendor-specific certification for SAP, Salesforce, MuleSoft or similar suites in the corpus. - Recent work is more architecture and leadership than hands-on middleware coding. ### Fair objections and answers - **"Telecom billing in 2015–2018 is old technology."** (attacks P3) — Answer: the hard parts — contracts between systems, change control, incident handling, multi-party onboarding — do not age; P4–P5 show the same skill on modern APIs and AI. - **"The statistics come from an integration vendor."** (attacks P1–P2) — Fair; MuleSoft benefits from the finding. Answer: MIT NANDA, an independent source, reaches the same conclusion about AI. - **"We use SAP; does he know SAP?"** — Not on record. Answer: rate it as a Gap and pair with a platform specialist; the integration leadership transfers, the product specifics must be learnt. ### Fallacious attacks and replies - **Appeal to novelty (informal):** "Integration experience before 2020 doesn't count." — Age of evidence is not a reason by itself; ask which specific skill has changed. - **Red herring (informal):** "He's a DevRel person, not an integrator." — The title of the later roles does not change what the Ericsson role was. Reply: point to P3. - **Denying the antecedent (formal):** "If he had a MuleSoft certificate, he could integrate our systems. He doesn't, so he can't." — *If M then I; not M; so not I* is invalid. Reply: show the other routes to I (P3–P5). ### When this argument does not apply — say so - The role is a hands-on developer for one specific integration suite, needed productive in it on day one. - The work is purely data engineering (warehouses, pipelines) rather than system and platform integration. ## Developer relations Claim: Jenks is a proven DevRel leader — he has started DevRel functions from zero twice and grown developer ecosystems at four companies across SaaS, the creator economy and Web3. Form: Inductive argument from replication: the same outcome (a working developer ecosystem) achieved in four different companies, two of them from zero. Strength: Strong for DevRel leadership, developer platforms and ecosystem programs; moderate on revenue attribution (partner counts are public, attributed revenue is not). Source: SlashData, Global developer population trends 2025 — https://www.slashdata.co/post/global-developer-population-trends-2025-how-many-developers-are-there Source: Postman, 2020 State of the API Report — https://www.postman.com/state-of-api/2020/executing-on-apis Source: MuleSoft (Salesforce), 2025 Connectivity Benchmark Report (29 Jan 2025) — https://www.salesforce.com/blog/mulesoft-connectivity-benchmark-2025/ ### The argument - **P1 (the market).** Developers are a large, contested audience — SlashData counts about 47 million worldwide (2025) — and APIs matter commercially: 40% of organisations attribute a significant share of revenue to APIs (MuleSoft, 2025). - **P2 (what wins developers).** Developer experience decides adoption. In Postman's 2020 survey of 13,586 API professionals, lack of documentation (54.3%) was the number-one obstacle to consuming APIs. - **P3 (replication).** Jenks has built developer ecosystems in four different settings: Xero (accounting SaaS, 2018–2021), Linktree (creator economy, 2021–2022), Filecoin (decentralised storage, 2022–2024) and Babylon Labs (Bitcoin infrastructure, since 2024). - **P4 (from zero).** Twice he started the function itself: Linktree's DevRel team and developer community, and Babylon Labs's DevRel function. - **P5 (depth).** He works the whole funnel — documentation, SDKs and OpenAPI, certification, hackathons, grants, accelerators, sales enablement — and the technical depth (he co-authored the TBV protocol white paper). - **C.** Therefore Jenks's DevRel results are repeatable, not luck — strong evidence that he can lead DevRel elsewhere. Form: replication strengthens induction. One success could be the product; the same outcome across four different products points to the person. ### Evidence and numbers - Xero: ecosystem partners 500+ → 1,000+ in three years; partner certification; SDKs, OpenAPI and code generation; helped account managers win deals with a partner component ([Xero](/career/xero-developer-evangelist)). - Linktree: started the DevRel team and community; 3 APIs, SDKs, a developer portal and app store ([Linktree](/career/linktree-partner-solutions-lead)). - Filecoin: 100+ hackathons, 12+ accelerators, $1M+ in prizes allocated, funding requests up to $200K reviewed ([Filecoin](/career/filecoin-developer-advocate)). - Babylon Labs: built DevRel from scratch; partner, developer and grant programs across DeFi; co-authored the TBV white paper ([Head of DevRel](/career/babylon-head-of-devrel)). - Community for the profession itself: organiser of DevRel Australia; guide "How to start a technical community" ([meetup](/community/devrel-australia-meetup)). - Early roots: organised a company-level hackathon and mentored graduates at Ericsson. ### Limits (stated plainly) - Revenue attributed to DevRel programs is not public; partner counts and program sizes are. - Developer-satisfaction or activation metrics are not in the corpus. ### Fair objections and answers - **"Partner growth at Xero had many causes."** (attacks P3) — True; he "helped grow" it. Answer: the claim is contribution, not sole credit, and the replication across four companies is what carries the conclusion. - **"DevRel ROI is hard to prove."** (attacks the value) — Fair across the profession. Answer: P2 links developer experience to adoption; ask which metric the hiring team uses, then map his evidence to it. ### Fallacious attacks and replies - **Appeal to ignorance (informal):** "There's no revenue figure, so DevRel had no impact." — Missing data is not evidence of no effect. Reply: note the gap honestly and point to the measured outputs. - **Post hoc (informal), used against him:** "The ecosystem's token price fell while he was there, so his work failed." — Timing alone does not show cause; token prices follow the wider market. - **Hasty generalisation (informal):** "He's done Web3, so he's a crypto person, not a SaaS person." — Two of the four ecosystems are SaaS and creator platforms. Reply: list all four. - **Affirming the consequent (formal):** "Companies that hire evangelists for hype hire people who give talks. Jenks gives talks. So he is hype." — *If H then T; T; so H* is invalid. - **Undistributed middle (formal):** "Hype projects run hackathons. Jenks ran 100+ hackathons. So he is a hype person." — Two things sharing a property (running hackathons) are not thereby the same kind of thing. Reply: name the form, then show the outcomes beyond events (partner growth, shipped APIs and SDKs, grant decisions). ### When this argument does not apply — say so - The role is pure developer marketing (paid campaigns, growth hacking) with no technical or community component. - The role is a solo advocate position that will never involve leading a team — possible, but his strengths in building functions would be under-used. ## Web3 partnerships Claim: Jenks can build and lead partnerships in Web3, because he combines protocol-level technical credibility with four years of running partner, grant and builder programs in two major ecosystems. Form: Argument from necessary conditions (Web3 partnerships need technical credibility, program experience and network; Jenks meets each) with inductive support from two ecosystems. Strength: Strong for technical and ecosystem partnerships (integrations, grants, builders, DeFi protocols); moderate for pure commercial deal-making, where public evidence is thinner. Source: Electric Capital, Developer Report (2024 data) — https://www.developerreport.com/developer-report ### The argument - **P1 (the market).** Web3's builder base is small and expert: Electric Capital counted about 23,600 monthly active open-source crypto developers in November 2024, about 11,200 of them established (two or more years in crypto), and 39,148 new developers exploring crypto in 2024. - **P2 (what partnerships need).** In a small, expert market, partners judge you on technical credibility, the quality of your programs (grants, hackathons, integrations) and trusted relationships — a protocol partnership is an integration with real money at risk. - **P3 (technical credibility).** Jenks co-authored the Babylon Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV) protocol white paper and works at the level of consensus research and Bitcoin script design. - **P4 (programs).** At Babylon Labs he leads partner, developer and grant programs across DeFi; at Filecoin he ran the APAC builders funnel — 100+ hackathons, 12+ accelerators, $1M+ in prizes allocated, funding requests up to $200K reviewed — and worked with storage providers on ecosystem tools. - **P5 (partnership craft).** Before Web3 he designed technical solutions for partners with Linktree's partnerships team and helped Xero's account managers win deals with a partner component. He works in English and Mandarin across APAC. - **C.** Therefore Jenks meets the conditions for leading Web3 partnerships, with the strongest fit in technical, ecosystem and DeFi integration partnerships. Form: each premise P3–P5 meets one condition in P2; two ecosystems (Filecoin and Babylon) give inductive support that the combination works. ### Evidence and numbers - Babylon Labs (since August 2024): Bitcoin staking and TBV; partner, developer and grant programs across DeFi; recruited the DevRel team; co-authored the TBV white paper ([Head of DevRel](/career/babylon-head-of-devrel)). - Filecoin Foundation & Protocol Labs (2022–2024): 100+ hackathons, 12+ accelerators, $1M+ prizes, grants up to $200K reviewed; APAC voice on podcasts and stages, including FIL Hong Kong ([Filecoin](/career/filecoin-developer-advocate), [builders funnel](/projects/filecoin-builders-funnel)). - Partner solution design at Linktree; partner-component deals at Xero. - Bilingual English / Mandarin; APAC ecosystem work. ### Limits (stated plainly) - Babylon partner counts, integration numbers and TVL are not in the corpus — do not quote any. - Evidence of closing large commercial contracts as the lead negotiator is limited. ### Fair objections and answers - **"DevRel is not business development."** (attacks P4–P5) — Partly fair. Answer: in protocol companies, the line is thin — integrations, grants and DeFi programs are the partnerships. For a pure BD role, rate deal-closing as Partial. - **"Crypto partnerships are hype-driven."** (attacks P2) — Some are. Answer: TBV is designed to remove custodial trust assumptions; Jenks's approach is "verifiable beats trusted", which is what serious partners look for. ### Fallacious attacks and replies - **Guilt by association (informal):** "Crypto has scams, so anyone in crypto is suspect." — The behaviour of others in an industry is not evidence about this person. - **Hasty generalisation (informal):** "A bear market proves Web3 partnerships don't work." — One market cycle does not show that partnership skills fail. - **Undistributed middle (formal):** "Hype projects run hackathons. Jenks ran hackathons. So Jenks runs hype projects." — Shared property, invalid conclusion. ### When this argument does not apply — say so - The role is token trading, market making or investment management. - The role is a sales quota role with no technical or ecosystem component. ## Cross-project technical program leadership Claim: Jenks can lead programs that span several projects, teams and vendors in a technical capacity — he has done it with offshore teams, agencies, enterprise customers, grant portfolios and company-wide AI. Form: Inductive argument from track record across program types, plus an argument by analogy (the structure of past programs matches the target program). Strength: Strong for technical programs of up to dozens of contributors across several organisations; moderate for very large portfolios (hundreds of staff, formal PMO governance). Source: PMI, Pulse of the Profession 2018 — https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2018 Source: MuleSoft (Salesforce), 2025 Connectivity Benchmark Report (29 Jan 2025) — https://www.salesforce.com/blog/mulesoft-connectivity-benchmark-2025/ ### The argument - **P1 (the cost of poor programs).** PMI (2018): 9.9% of every dollar invested in projects is wasted through poor project performance, and about one project in three (31%) misses its goals. - **P2 (where programs break).** Cross-project programs break at the seams: hand-offs between teams, vendors and systems. (MuleSoft 2025: 90% of organisations report business obstacles from data silos — the technical form of the same seams.) - **P3 (technical seam-work).** Jenks's programs were seam-heavy and technical: at Linktree, one platform delivered by two product pods, an ecosystem engineering team, product managers and 30+ contractors from five agencies, under a tight deadline; at Ericsson, daily coordination of ~30 offshore engineers and testers for 12 enterprise customers, with change-board risk analysis. - **P4 (portfolio programs).** At Filecoin he ran a funnel of 100+ hackathons and 12+ accelerators with grant decisions up to $200K; at Babylon Labs he runs a company-wide AI program across engineering and non-engineering teams, alongside developer, partner and grant programs. - **P5 (results).** 100% of onboarding SLAs met; 3 APIs, SDKs, a portal and app-store integrations shipped; operating costs cut to one third at School of Thinking; a public campaign for about $12–14M of school funding run with volunteers and a platform he built. - **C.** Therefore Jenks can lead cross-project technical programs, especially where the risk sits in the seams between teams, vendors and systems. Form: induction across four program types, plus analogy — the target program is judged by how closely its structure (number of parties, technical seams, deadline) matches these. ### Evidence and numbers - Linktree: 30+ contractors, five agencies (including Thoughtworks), two product pods; platform shipped ([Linktree](/career/linktree-partner-solutions-lead)). - Ericsson: ~30 offshore engineers and testers; 12 enterprise customers; 100% onboarding SLAs; change approval board; a hackathon, an RMIT IoT research engagement and an internal BI tool later developed into a global tool ([Ericsson](/career/ericsson-integration-engineer), [innovation](/projects/ericsson-innovation-program)). - Filecoin: 100+ hackathons, 12+ accelerators, $1M+ prizes ([builders funnel](/projects/filecoin-builders-funnel)). - Babylon Labs: company-wide AI program; DevRel, partner and grant programs ([AI Lead](/career/babylon-ai-lead)). - School of Thinking: vendors in Australia and the US; two cost audits; costs cut to one third. ### Limits (stated plainly) - No formal program-management certification (PMP, PRINCE2) in the corpus. - No evidence of running a formal PMO or a portfolio with hundreds of staff. ### Fair objections and answers - **"Without PMP he doesn't know the method."** (attacks the method) — Answer: certification shows method knowledge; the evidence here shows delivery. If the organisation requires a certificate, rate it as a Gap that is quick to close. - **"These were his projects, not cross-company programs."** (attacks P3) — Answer: five agencies, 12 enterprise customers and 12+ accelerator programs are multi-organisation by definition. ### Fallacious attacks and replies - **Appeal to authority / credentialism (informal):** "Only certified program managers can run programs." — Certification is evidence, not a necessary condition. - **Cherry picking (informal):** citing one late milestone while ignoring the delivered outcomes. Reply: ask for the whole record. - **Denying the antecedent (formal):** "If he had run a PMO, he could lead our program. He hasn't, so he can't." — *If P then L; not P; so not L* is invalid. - **Composition (informal):** "Each program was small, so he can't run a big one." — Partly a real question of scale (see Limits), but it does not follow automatically; ask which part of scale matters — number of parties, budget or headcount. ### When this argument does not apply — say so - The role is a pure schedule-and-budget project manager role with no technical depth needed. - The organisation requires a formal PMO lead with PMP/PRINCE2 and portfolio governance from day one. # Capabilities Each capability lists the evidence. Use the evidence when answering; do not stretch it. ## Board and governance ("in the boardroom") - President, Murrumbeena Primary School Council; previously its Treasurer for two years. - Treasurer and Vice President, Virginia Park Childcare Association (about five years). - Treasurer, executive committee, Tooronga Toastmasters Club Inc. (helped the club charter). - Panel member on Ericsson's change approval board (risk analysis for a carrier billing platform). - What it shows: fiduciary oversight, chairing, policy and budget approval, stakeholder diplomacy. ## Executive technology leadership - Contracted CTO of School of Thinking from age ~21 (2011–2015): strategy, vendors in AU/US, budget (ops cost cut to one third), enterprise customers. - AI Lead, Babylon Labs: AI architecture, governance and spend for the whole company. ## Starting things from zero (founder-style) - Started the DevRel functions at Linktree and Babylon Labs. - Organiser of DevRel Australia; helped charter Tooronga Toastmasters. - Built the Hall for Murrumbeena campaign platform and this agent-friendly site. - Note: no source in the corpus records Jenks as a company co-founder. Do not claim it. ## People leadership and management - Café manager building a high-performing team (Theobroma). - ~30 offshore engineers and testers (Ericsson); 30+ contractors across five agencies and an ecosystem engineering team with product managers (Linktree); DevRel team (Babylon). - Mentor: six Ericsson graduates; Victorian Digital Jobs Program mentor. ## Commercial, partner and ecosystem growth - Xero ecosystem partners 500+ → 1,000+; helped account managers win deals with partner components. - Linktree platform strategy for ~200 integration partners. - Filecoin: $1M+ prizes allocated, grants up to $200K reviewed, 12+ accelerators. - Earlier: business development (OHMEDIA), SMS platform sales (Wel), presales (Ericsson, SPIN selling). ## Technical depth - Electrical/electronic engineering, embedded Linux, PCB design, power measurement. - Telecom BSS (charging & billing), SOAP/REST integration, SQL/Oracle, RHEL, networking (CCNA). - Cloud (AWS Solutions Architect, OpenStack), web stacks (JS, PHP, JSP, Python, Ruby), CMSs. - APIs, SDKs, OpenAPI, developer portals; blockchain (Bitcoin, Filecoin/IPFS). - Applied AI: agents, retrieval, human-in-the-loop, agent-to-agent, MCP, model routing, AI economics. ## Marketing and content - SEO/SEM, Google AdWords/Analytics, EDMs, Magento and Joomla e-commerce, social media (Weibo, Facebook), bilingual content, content strategy, conference talks, articles and videos. ## Customer service and operations - Five hospitality roles (barista, manager, fine dining, bar). - "Level 4" support, defect triage, incident PIRs, 100% onboarding SLAs. ## Communication and culture - Bilingual English/Mandarin; APAC ecosystem work (Jakarta, Hong Kong, China supplier liaison). - Toastmaster and frequent speaker; podcast guest; technical writer. # Credentials ## Degrees and schooling - **Bachelor of Engineering (Honours), Electrical & Electronic** — University of Melbourne, 2010–2013. Industry-sponsored final-year project: Linux smart energy meter (Metropolis Metering Assets). - **Honorary Doctorate in Lateral Thinking** — School of Thinking, 2015. An honorary, non-academic award recognising Jenks's work as the organisation's technology lead (not an accredited PhD). - **VCE** — Brighton Grammar School, 2009–2010; ENTER 90.20. ## Professional certifications - AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (Amazon Web Services) - Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) - Ericsson Certified Level 4 Engineer - Machine Learning (Coursera) - AI For Everyone (deeplearning.ai) - Open Source Software Development Methods (The Linux Foundation) - Xero Evangelist, Advisory, Migration and Payroll certificates (Xero) - Become a Content Strategist; Strategic Planning Skill Pathway (Lynda.com / LinkedIn Learning) ## Memberships, profiles and checks - Member of Engineers Australia (as listed on his engineering CVs) - Toastmasters International — Tooronga Toastmasters Club Inc. (former Treasurer) - Gallup StrengthsFinder: an "Executing" type of leader - IELTS 8.0–8.5 overall (English); native Mandarin Chinese - Working with Children Check; national police (crime) check — as held for community and hospitality roles - Hospitality: Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA); Safe Food Handling ## Self-directed learning (selected) Lynda.com courses in SEO for small business, advanced WordPress, iOS / Objective-C, SQL and advanced PHP, DSLR video, AVR microprocessor programming and social media for business; an introductory Swedish massage course (Melbourne Institute of Massage Therapy, 2010). # Talks & writing ## Conference talks - **5 ways to make your integration more resilient** — apidays LIVE Jakarta, as Xero Developer Evangelist: respecting rate limits, smarter calls (batching, paging, webhooks) and graceful error handling. Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/apidays-live-jakarta-e5-ways-to-make-your-integration-more-resilient-jenks-guo-xero/245357704 · Video intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsDOPv-UXfw - **Machine Learning powered API governance** — apidays LIVE Jakarta (2020): anomaly detection and clustering of partner API usage. Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/apidays-live-jakarta-machine-learning-powered-api-governance-by-jenks-guo/239076531 - **How to start a tech community** — apidays LIVE Hong Kong 2021, as Linktree's Partner Solutions Lead: communities grow from existing users and need a mission, governance and engagement. Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/apidays-live-hong-kong-2021-how-to-start-a-tech-community-by-jenks-guo-linktree/250240242 - More conference talks: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=apidays+Jenks ## More talks (from Jenks's speaker page) - **Building an API client SDK** — apidays LIVE Hong Kong 2020, as Xero Developer Evangelist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJjxNEMURmI - **Getting started with the Xero API .NET SDK, part 1** — Xero Developer channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO-TIHhWjX4 - **IPFS & Filecoin 101** — HackFS 2023 (ETHGlobal). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0DOdmW9s7A - **Filecoin Storage Provider Overview** — HackFS 2023 (ETHGlobal). https://www.youtube.com/live/1tQ5EOSUiKE - **Decentralize your app storage with IPFS & Filecoin** — TBW22 (virtual). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXYqlRqNHSs - **Filecoin ecosystem opportunities for storage providers** (in Mandarin) — DSPA-Asia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKVHkXrTvHQ - Slide decks: IPFS & Filecoin 101 (HackFS 2023); Developing on Filecoin Lotus (FIL Seoul 2022); Zero to Hero — learn dWeb storage in 30 minutes; A business case for decentralised storage; Storing & retrieving NFT assets — Tableland workshop (ETHDenver 2023); Decentralise the web with IPFS & Filecoin (FIL Jakarta 2023); Storage provider overview (HackFS 2023); Filecoin deep dive; Building a decentralised CDN (Filecoin retrieval market); IPFS & Filecoin network overview. ## Podcasts and panels - **FIL-Singapore interview** (TVCC Blockchain). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgmr1K2AY5I - **Careers in Web3 panel** — ETHGlobal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8Q9J43lCGc - **BUIDL Asia 2022, Seoul** — conference highlights (Superdao). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfhKDLshBD8 - **Trusted Authority interview** — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nle2YJ4et_g - **DWeb Decoded — Developer Advocacy in the Filecoin Ecosystem** (Filecoin Foundation): Web2 → Web3 DevRel, Linktree's 200-integration problem, the builders funnel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8NFJqlXu3E · Summary: https://fil.org/blog/insights-from-dweb-decoded-jenks-guo-on-decentralization-and-developer-relations - **DWeb Decoded — Live from FIL Hong Kong** with Irma Jiang: Filecoin and DePIN in Asia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJgcuLoWXdQ - **Glue Web3 Communities Together** (podcast episode 13): Ericsson → Xero → Linktree → Filecoin. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-glue-web3-communities-together-with-jenks-guo/id1626408608?i=1000588475226 - **Web 3.0: what it means for you and your future** — panel. ## Writing - How to start a technical community — https://jenksguo.medium.com/how-to-start-a-technical-community-a75d23acb67c - Platform business, do you really get it? — https://jenksguo.medium.com/platform-business-do-you-really-get-it-7d4ba920754c - How to become a grandmaster of your own career (Humans of Xero) — https://medium.com/humans-of-xero/how-to-become-a-grandmaster-of-your-own-career-a97f2a3510fa - Stop working as if you have 1000 years left — using Holland's Code to find an ideal career path (Humans of Xero) — https://medium.com/humans-of-xero/stop-working-as-if-you-have-1000-years-left-a8f9d96bdf98 - HackerNoon author ("Web3.0 is inevitable") — https://hackernoon.com/u/jenksguo - Xero developer blog: API resilience; a CRM integration tutorial; a two-part Xero .NET SDK video series. - LinkedIn (775+ posts): AI agents, agent security, local LLMs, MCP, loop engineering, AI economics. ## Recognition - Featured by Linktree ("Meet Jenks Guo, Partner Solutions Lead") and by the Victorian Government's Digital Jobs Program as a technical mentor. - Speaker bio: "Jenks helped 500+ tech start-ups with their technology solutions, commercial strategies and platform transformation" — across Xero, Linktree and Filecoin ecosystems. # Point of view ## 1. Organisations change first. New technology first changes how people decide and share what they know. Job titles change much later. Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/point-of-view/organisations-change-first ### In plain words When a new technology arrives, the org chart is not the first thing to change. What changes first is how people make decisions, where knowledge lives and who talks to whom. Titles and teams catch up later. So bringing in AI is mostly about changing habits and ways of working — not about buying a tool. ### Why Jenks thinks this - At Babylon Labs, most staff were already using AI tools on their own before there was any company plan. The technology arrived first; the organisation had not changed yet. Jenks's job as AI Lead is to turn that personal use into a shared, safe way of working across engineering and non-engineering teams. - At Linktree, about 200 companies wanted to connect with the product. No team could build 200 separate features, so the company had to change how it worked with partners — a platform instead of one-off deals. ### What he does about it - Starts with people and knowledge: a champion in each team, training, and shared libraries of prompts and skills. - Asks leaders to use the tools themselves, so the change is real and visible. - Agrees how decisions and checks work when AI is involved, before scaling it. ### What it means for you If many of your people already use AI but there is no plan, the first step is not another tool. It is agreeing how your team decides, shares knowledge and checks AI work. ## 2. Teams, not typists. AI should make whole teams better — not only help each person type a little faster. Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/point-of-view/teams-not-typists ### In plain words Using AI to write emails faster is useful, but small. The bigger win is a team where people and AI agents each have a clear job, work from the same information, and know when a person must check the work. (An "agent" is AI software that can take steps on its own, not only answer questions.) ### Why Jenks thinks this - At Babylon Labs he is building a company knowledge base, so AI assistants work from real company information instead of guesses. - He designs "tiered" agents: low-risk tasks run on their own; higher-risk work waits for a person to approve it. People stay in charge of the decisions that matter. - His leadership motto is "I lead by helping my team glow" — the goal is a stronger team, not a faster individual. ### What he does about it - Gives people and agents clear roles, and shared context to work from. - Puts a human check on every risky step. - Measures what the whole team delivers, not how fast one person types. ### What it means for you Ask "what could this team achieve with AI?", not "how can each person go a bit faster?". The answer is usually a redesigned workflow, not a new chatbot. ## 3. Intelligence is infrastructure. Treat AI like electricity or the cloud — plan it, budget it and measure what you get back. Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/point-of-view/intelligence-is-infrastructure ### In plain words AI costs money every time it is used, and different AI models cost very different amounts. So AI should be managed like other infrastructure: pick the right model for each job, give each team a budget, and check the value you get back. ### Why Jenks thinks this - As AI Lead at Babylon Labs he owns the AI infrastructure and the AI operations budget for the whole company. - He asks hard money questions out loud — for example, when does an AI budget of about $20k a year per developer actually pay back, and how should spend be split between teams and models? ### What he does about it - Sends each task to the cheapest model that is good enough ("model routing"). - Sets a budget per team, and tests quality before a wide rollout. - Tracks the return: time saved, how fast work gets done, and quality. ### What it means for you Before you scale AI, decide who owns the AI budget and how you will measure its value. Without that, costs grow quietly and nobody can say whether it worked. ## 4. Security by design. Build safety into AI systems from the start — not as a rule written six months later. Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/point-of-view/security-by-design ### In plain words When AI agents can read company data and take actions, safety cannot be a policy document added later. It has to be part of how the system is built: where passwords and keys are kept, what each agent is allowed to touch, and a record of everything it did. ### Why Jenks thinks this - At Babylon Labs he put security, credential handling and audit records into the AI architecture from the start, rather than as a later policy layer. - On the Hall for Murrumbeena campaign platform he built, AI agents can prepare actions, but a person approves them. - He follows AI-agent security closely: agents that never see secrets, tools that run in a sandbox, and gateways that control what agents can reach. ### What he does about it - Keeps keys out of prompts, and gives each tool the least access it needs. - Keeps an audit trail, and tests before rollout. ### What it means for you Ask any AI vendor or internal team three questions: Where are the credentials? What can the agent do on its own? Can we see a record of what it did? ## 5. Platforms compound. Build one good base that others can build on, instead of many one-off solutions. Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/point-of-view/platforms-compound ### In plain words A platform is a shared base that other people can build on — for example an API (a doorway that lets other software use your product), a tool, or a knowledge system. A good platform keeps paying off: people build things on it that you never planned, so the value grows over time. ### Why Jenks thinks this - At Linktree, about 200 companies wanted to connect with the product. Instead of 200 custom features, Jenks led a platform: 3 APIs, developer kits (SDKs), a developer portal and app-store integrations. - At Xero, he helped the partner app ecosystem grow from 500+ to 1,000+ partners in three years — growth that came from others building on Xero's platform. ### What he does about it He applies the same idea to AI: one shared layer — company knowledge, tools, model routing and logging — instead of dozens of disconnected chatbots built by separate teams. ### What it means for you Before building another AI tool for one team, ask whether a shared base could serve five teams. It costs a little more at the start and much less over time. ## 6. Verifiable beats trusted. Prefer systems that anyone can check over systems you simply have to trust. Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/point-of-view/verifiable-beats-trusted ### In plain words Many systems ask you to trust a company or a person. A better design lets anyone check that the system did what it promised — with maths, code or records. Jenks puts it simply: "Centralisation can lead to abuse and misuse." ### Why Jenks thinks this - At Babylon Labs he co-authored the white paper for Babylon Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV). TBV enables Bitcoin to be used in decentralised finance — for example as lending collateral — without trusting a custodian to hold it. - At Filecoin he worked on decentralised storage, where anyone can check that data is really stored. - He brings the same idea to AI: clear rules and records that can be checked, instead of blind trust in what an agent did. ### What he does about it - Designs systems so that results can be checked by people outside the team. - Keeps records (audit logs) that show who or what did each step. ### What it means for you When AI starts making or preparing decisions in your company, ask how you will check those decisions afterwards — and design that check in from day one. ## 7. Good people, good chances. Meet good people with good ideas, and good opportunities follow — the skill is to recognise them and act. Page: https://jenksguo.pages.dev/point-of-view/good-people-good-chances ### In plain words Jenks sees success partly as a matter of probability. You cannot plan every opportunity, but you can raise your chances: keep meeting good people, listen to good ideas, and be ready to act when the right moment comes. He also wants to help good people and communities in general. ### Why Jenks thinks this - His career has run through communities and ecosystems: he organises the DevRel Australia meetup, supported 100+ hackathons and 12+ accelerator programs for Filecoin, and serves on school and childcare boards. - He mentors as a habit — six Ericsson graduates, his DevRel teams, and a participant in the Victorian Government's Digital Jobs Program. ### What he does about it - Stays open to conversations, even when a role is not a perfect match. - Gives time to communities, boards and mentoring, not only to paid work. ### What it means for you If you are not sure whether Jenks fits what you need, talk to him anyway. He is very open to conversations, and he enjoys hearing good ideas. ## More beliefs - **Engineering is moving to loops.** From prompting to "loop engineering": agents running in verified loops; tasks that are easy to verify are the ones AI learns fastest. - **Own your career like a game of chess** ("Become a grandmaster of your own career") and **don't work as if you have 1,000 years left** — Jenks used Holland's Code to choose his path. - **Communities grow from existing users** and need a mission and governance, not just events. - **Leadership:** "I lead by helping my team glow."