Developer Showcase Series: Sally MacFarlane, ConsenSys

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Sally MacFarlane, ConsenSys Protocols Engineer at ConsenSys.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

I’m working on privacy and permissioning features in Hyperledger Besu. I got into blockchain in 2018 when a friend told me about an exciting opportunity working on tech I had only just heard of.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

Besu uses Hyperledger Caliper to run performance testing for public and private transactions. We have been able to leverage Hyperledger infrastructure to expand our Besu community for both developers and users. Recently my team has been working on interop with GoQuorum for privacy and permissioning features. 

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

There’s a lot of momentum in the blockchain space, and it would be great to use that to attract more people to the community. Also Diversity, Equity and Inclusion! To build software that will be useful to a wide range of people, we need a wide range of people building the software. What can we do to stand with the rest of the world at this time and improve DEI at Hyperledger projects?

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

Read a lot. Understand the space. There are lots of open source projects looking for contributors, which is a good place to start.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

Election fraud

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

I hope blockchain becomes usable for regular people. Current software is hard to use even for us engineers! Seamless integration and consistency between products would be good to see.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

“I don’t know” is an acceptable answer.

What technology could you not live without?

High speed internet

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