I stumbled upon Travis Hubbard on X recently, and was reading a tweet of his stating that “[we]‘re all punks too”. That hit close to home.

It made me realise that a lot of how I think about engineering, leadership, and even family life can be summed up by one word: punk. Not loud or chaotic, but independent, intentional, and grounded in reality.

Here’s my take on PUNK as a set of principles:

Pragmatic

Pragmatic means caring about what actually works.

In engineering and management, this is about choosing solutions that survive contact with the real world. Using the tools that fit the problem. Making trade-offs consciously. Focusing on outcomes rather than ideology or fashion.

It’s not anti-ambition, it’s anti-waste. Ship, learn, adjust.

Unconventional

Unconventional is about not outsourcing your thinking.

Whether it’s how teams are organised, how careers are shaped, or how a family chooses to live and learn, this is about questioning defaults. Just because something is common doesn’t mean it’s optimal.

It’s choosing values over optics, coherence over conformity, and being comfortable standing slightly off-centre if that’s where things make more sense.

Nimble

Nimble is adaptability as a way of life.

When you move often, travel light, and know that contexts change, you learn to keep things simple. Fewer possessions, fewer rigid plans, more optionality. The goal is not to control everything, but to adjust quickly without losing direction.

In teams, systems, and families alike, nimbleness beats rigidity every time.

Keen

Keen is one of those words that sounds uniquely Australian to me. The kind of energy you hear in someone like Beau Miles. Curious, enthusiastic, exuberantly adventurous.

Being keen means staying interested. Wanting to understand how things work. Learning because it’s useful and because it’s enjoyable. Saying yes to the next hill, the next idea, the next experiment.

Not reckless. Just genuinely up for it.

Punk, then

Put together, these principles form a way of working, and living, that values:

• what works over what looks good
• thinking for yourself
• adapting without drama
• staying curious and engaged

That’s punk enough for me.

Punk.