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About · The person behind serowAlfie Fitzpatrick. I've spent twenty years building software, hardware and networks for everyone from global brands to five-person firms — and the last three of those years living here in the North Pennines, where serow is based. Most of my work is remote; the good bits happen in person, up a track, in your yard.
Photo goes here: me, a hill, probably weather.
I moved up here three years ago, and it wasn't a business plan — it was where we wanted to live and raise our children. The work came with me: most of what I build ships remotely, to clients spread across the UK and further, which is exactly why I can do this job from the Pennines instead of a business park.
But living here changed what I wanted serow to be. I kept meeting brilliant local businesses running on tools that fight them, connectivity that fails them, and "IT support" that's a ninety-minute drive away on a good day. I can fix those things. I do it for companies with millions of users; doing it for the farm two valleys over is more satisfying, honestly.
So the deal is simple: the Pennines get me in person — site visits, installs, emergencies answered the same day rather than after the drive up from town, a face you'll recognise in the Co-op — and the remote work keeps my tools sharp on problems of every size.
When I'm not building for clients, I'm building for myself — it's the same itch. I've restored motorbikes, I work on cars, and I'll happily lose an afternoon to any machine that needs bringing back to life. If your business involves machinery, we'll get on: I speak that language as fluently as software.
The rest of my time is outdoors. The vegetable garden gets more attention than any server I run — growing your own is the original "build it yourself" — and the best days are outside with my children, in whatever the tops decide the weather is doing.
I mention all this because it's actually relevant: a technologist who's happy with an engine in bits and mud on his boots is a different proposition from one who isn't. Your workshop, your barn, your yard in the rain — that's a normal Tuesday, not an away day.
The short version: I take it personally.
Free, no-obligation site visit anywhere in Weardale or Alston Moor. Kettle on, problem out on the table, and I'll tell you honestly if you don't need me.