Engineering leader
Hey! I'm Steven. I live in Berlin, where I help good people, usually software engineers, do good work. I write about engineering leadership, shipping, hiring, systems and the politics of technology.
Recent essays
Featured
· 19 min read
Everyone adopted AI for hiring to get an edge, so nobody has one. What that monoculture does to the teams hiring builds, and why variety is the thing worth protecting.
AI · Hiring · Systems
· 23 min read
It’s an interesting new obsession of ours. Don’t get me wrong, disregarding context for a second, I think generative AI is potentially revolutionary technology, I just don’t believe you. I’m not trying to be mean, I’m trying to be helpful…
· 14 min read
I need to talk about SpaceX’s IPO, the shaky foundations it’s built on, the fraud it’s being used to commit, and the consequences for you and your grandparents. Two cases to make: the engineering can’t be built on schedule, and…
· 8 min read
Sorry Peter. — I'm at a birthday party, and while most people here also work in tech, there's always a Guy with a Real Job. You know, a physical job, building some or other thing people need. And this Guy…
Programming · Leadership · AI
Track Record
Two decades building and leading engineering teams across web, mobile, and the platforms underneath, mostly in the places where shipping is hardest: regulated industries, scattered teams, years of tangled legacy. Three things from that time that changed how I think about all of this.
01
20x
Deployment frequency
Scale-up · 7–8 teams
Releases were batched into sprints, so nothing shipped until the whole train was ready. I introduced feature flags and reworked continuous delivery, taking the team from sprint-based releases to multiple production deploys a day.
02
9 teams
Delivering independently
Public agribusiness · digital unit
A flat, horizontal org meant every initiative crossed every team, so nothing shipped in parallel. I redesigned it into nine teams, each owning a clear slice of the product, so they could ship their own work without waiting on everyone else.
03
−70%
Change failure rate
Critical infrastructure · ~30 engineers
Defects were reaching production in a domain where failure isn't an option. I introduced DORA metrics and rebuilt the pre-production environments to mirror real setups, catching defects long before release.
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Every time we collaborated, Steven was prepared and ready to work through whatever we faced. I haven't met many engineering leaders so intent on making sure their teams deliver great work without burning out. His people stayed engaged, shipped consistently, and actually enjoyed the process. I'd work with him again in a heartbeat.
Write to me
I write about engineering leadership, shipping, hiring, systems and the politics of technology. If you are living something that confirms what I have written, or breaks it, I would love to hear about it. There is nothing to buy here and nothing to book. Just tell me what your week actually looks like.