About

Small team, useful humans

Automatica is a Melbourne IT support team for businesses that want technology to make the work easier, not more mysterious.

How we work

We listen before we prescribe

We have been helping Melbourne businesses since 2009, especially teams that care deeply about their work and do not want IT getting in the way of it. Creative studios, law firms, architects, finance teams, and other small and medium businesses all tend to have their own way of working. We like that.

Our job is to understand the people, the work, and the slightly odd collection of systems that every real business accumulates over time. Then we make things simpler, safer, and easier to support.

No drama, no jargon fog, no ceremonial overcomplication. Just useful advice, careful implementation, and support from people who remember the weird bits.

Who you'll work with

A small team means familiar faces

You are not handed from department to department. You deal with people who know your setup, understand your priorities, and can explain what is going on without reaching for a whiteboard marker and a haunted diagram.

Founder

Kai Howells

Kai started Automatica in 2009 after a winding path through graphic design, prepress, Apple systems integration, technical sales, and a brief but energetic stint as a bike courier.

He likes solving the problem underneath the problem: listening carefully, cutting through technical specifications, and finding practical fixes that make sense in the real world. Outside work, he is into music, gaming, cooking, bush walks, twisty backroads, whisky, his kids, and one very important cat.

Senior Systems Engineer

Darren Halprin

Darren joined Automatica after years deep in Apple, Windows, and Unix systems: somewhere between fixing what should not be broken and explaining why it broke anyway. After nearly a decade working alongside Kai, he brings a steady hand to integrations, networks, security, and day-to-day support.

He is good at spotting the real issue hiding behind the obvious one: reading between the logs, cutting through vendor noise, and finding fixes that work in the real world. Outside work, Darren swaps command lines for chisels, follows Carlton, enjoys live music and theatre, and still tinkers with AI and automation projects.

Support Technician

Marcus Green

Marcus helps clients in person and remotely with the usual cheerful parade of IT issues. After studying computing, he jumped into the real IT world and now spends his weeks between onsite visits, support tickets, client check-ins, and plenty of Microsoft 365, with a soft spot for Apple environments and physical network gear.

He approaches support by listening first, taking people seriously, and remembering that the person using the system often knows the weirdest and most useful details. Outside work, Marcus is into seeing mates, going to the gym, playing games, trying new food, building a full-stack university project for a real client, and the occasional dangerously long sitcom session.