Tash Canter

Growing up, I spent much of my time playing classical piano and saxophone while also enjoying maths and physics. That combination led me to study Tonmeister at the University of Surrey, a unique degree combining music, acoustics, engineering and mathematics.

During university I became deeply interested in recording and mixing music and spent a placement year working as an assistant engineer at AIR Studios in London, helping support recording sessions ranging from orchestras and film scores to smaller band sessions, with some credits on my IMDb profile. While I loved the technical side of audio, I realised that a career in the recording industry wasn't quite the life I wanted.

I found myself more drawn towards understanding how complex systems worked and exploring technical ideas in more depth. Around the same time I completed a research project on personalised 3D audio, which later became an AES journal paper and was awarded Best Technical Paper at the AES Convention.

That curiosity eventually led me to complete an MSc in Artificial Intelligence at King's College London, where I worked on projects across computer vision, machine learning and data science.

My first experience of programming came through building audio plugins during my final year. Through both the research paper, and learning to program I discovered how much I enjoyed exploring complex technical problems and building practical solutions.

After graduating, I joined Vivacity, a growing smart-city technology startup, as a Software Engineer. Working in a relatively small team gave me the opportunity to contribute across both frontend and backend systems, take ownership of features, and rapidly develop my skills as a full-stack engineer. I worked on smart city analytics software used by organisations including Transport for London, helping build systems that transformed large volumes of sensor data into useful real-world insights. I loved the challenge of solving complex technical problems while building software that had a real impact.

After several years in London, I found myself wanting more autonomy over how I worked and lived. I left my role at Vivacity and spent a year travelling through South America and Central America, an experience that gave me space to reflect on the kind of life I wanted to build. During that time I realised I wanted to practise software engineering in a way that gave me more freedom, closer collaboration with clients and greater ownership over the products I helped create.

That realisation led me into freelancing.

Now I live in Pisac, Peru and have been working remotely with founders across the UK, EU and North America, helping turn ideas into well crafted web and mobile applications.

For larger projects I sometimes collaborate with my partner Chas, an experienced frontend engineer, allowing us to take on bigger builds while maintaining a close and collaborative way of working.

I also make extensive use of AI throughout the development process, from research and prototyping through to implementation and testing. I've found these tools can dramatically increase development speed, but I believe good software requires human judgement. I use AI as a collaborator rather than an autopilot, reviewing its output carefully and making the key product, architecture and technical decisions myself.

I really enjoy the technical problem solving and ownership that comes with building products for clients. Just as much, I enjoy the creativity and collaboration involved in working closely with founders and creating something they're really excited to use and share.

Freelancing has also given me the freedom to build a life that feels aligned with who I am. Having space for music, nature, community and continual learning ultimately makes me a better engineer, collaborator and problem solver.