Yes, I know — it can raise an eyebrow. But for me, Smartarse isn’t about arrogance. It’s about hard-won experience.
The name goes back to my time in Army Information Services, where I led a team that started at twelve and was eventually reduced to four. The workload didn’t shrink with the headcount. If anything, it intensified.
With such a small team supporting critical systems, there was nowhere to hide and no room for narrow specialisms. In any given week we might be dealing with infrastructure failures, security incidents, content systems, deployment challenges, user support, policy constraints, and leadership reporting — often all at once.
It meant being exposed to a depth and breadth of technical problems that most people wouldn’t encounter across an entire career.
You either learn fast… or you fall behind.
“Smartarse” became a bit of a badge. The person who could figure it out. The one who had probably seen something similar before. The one who knew just enough about a lot of things — and enough about the right things — to connect the dots quickly.
What it actually means
Being a Digital Smartarse isn’t about showing off. It’s about:
- Seeing patterns others miss
- Asking the awkward but necessary questions
- Challenging assumptions (politely)
- Knowing when something won’t scale
- Having the experience to say “this will break later” — before it does
It’s confidence built on exposure, not ego.
And if the name makes someone smile slightly nervously before they read on? Good. It starts a conversation.
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