Hi, I'm Stephen.
I’m a software developer and architect. For the last thirty years I’ve been building systems for energy companies, commodity trading, funds, and banks. I’ve shipped a lot of Java and now spend a lot of time designing and building data platforms with Databricks and Python.
I also volunteer for the Armenian Institute; a charity that supports Armenian culture through its language classes, library, events, and publishing books. I help out at events, advise on technical matters, and digitise and prepare books for publishing. If you find your way to the Armenian Summer Festival in London, I’ll probably be on the stall.
This blog is where I write the post I wish I’d found three days into a problem. Long-form, no clickbait, no SEO games. I post irregularly but I’m trying to be better about that.
What I write about
- Digitising and publishing old books and archives — the challenges of OCR and publishing
- Armenian Institute projects and events - from publishing books to the history of computing in Armenia
- Building software and websites - technical obstacles I have encountered and how I solved them
- Java, Spring, and the Drools rules engine — although maybe not so much lately
Elsewhere
I keep a bikepacking journal at velostevie.com. The two sites share an author, but absolutely no design language — and that’s intentional.