About

I am Shaun Vermaak, a Lead Engineer at Macquarie Group in Sydney. I have always been fascinated by technology and how we use it to make life and business easier, and ITtelligence is where I have written about it since 2008.

Most of what is here started as a problem at work. When a task kept coming back, I wrote a tool or a script for it, and when something did not behave the way the documentation said, I wrote down what actually happened. I still believe there is almost always an easier way to do a task, and that if you do something the same way the second time, you have not learned anything from the first.

What You Will Find Here

  • Free tools and scripts, mostly for Microsoft infrastructure: Active Directory, Group Policy, Windows Server, WSUS and Exchange
  • PowerShell, C# and .NET, including complete projects with source on GitHub
  • SharePoint and Microsoft 365 development
  • More recently, AI tooling: Claude Code and the Model Context Protocol

Background

Years

Role

2022 – present

Lead Engineer, Macquarie Group, Sydney

2019 – 2022

Senior Consultant, Dialog IT, Sydney

2011 – 2019

Technical Specialist IV, Gijima

Across those roles the work has been cloud migrations, application and infrastructure modernisation, deployments, upgrades, software development and operations, mainly on Microsoft technology. Working across many industries taught me to look at problems from more than one angle, and my development background shapes how I approach every one of them.

Experts Exchange

I have answered questions on Experts Exchange since 2016: 4,890 solutions and 60 articles so far. In 2025 I was named Expert of the Year and Distinguished Expert. Several posts on this blog started life as Experts Exchange articles.

Certifications

Microsoft certifications include MCSE: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure, MCSE: Productivity, MCSE: Data Management and Analytics, MCSD: App Builder and MCSA for Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012, SQL Server, Web Applications and Cloud Platform. I am also a 2025 Microsoft 365 & Power Platform Community Contributor. The full list is on Credly.

Elsewhere