Intro
Hey, I'm Stefan.
I'm a software developer that's passionate about doing what matters. Throughout my career, my perspective on what truly matters in software development has changed and evolved.
Early in my career, I focused on delivering business requirements quickly, without asking too many questions. Later, I prioritised writing "clean code", and crafting SOLID masterpieces. Today, my goal is to deliver "the right things" in "the right way", on time, while building meaningful relationships with my peers.
I spend a significant part of my role being the glue between product-oriented folks and techies; between teams that work in closely-related domains. I recognise that today's new code becomes tomorrow's tech debt and I try to balance short delivery cycles with building evolutionary architectures. I harp on dogfooding to bring user and developer experience to the fore.
I try to ask more questions than I answer – both to learn and to teach. I firmly believe in collaboration and acknowledging the contributions of others. It brings me joy to give credit where it's due and to foster people's growth within their respective roles.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
How did I get into programming? Frankly, I'd have a hard time making this an exciting story, so I won't try that.
I've met folks who'd earned PhDs in quantum physics, mathematics, or chemistry before making successful transitions into programming. I can't help but feel a hint of envy towards those extraordinary individuals.
My personal journey into the realm of software development is not that cool. My own journey began during high school, where I grappled with the challenges of C and C++ algorithm courses.
Early into my university years, thanks to my brother, I became captivated by web development. Suddenly, there was more to programming than writing sorting algorithms in Notepad++ (although it took me longer to discover that there are other editors out there). Taking a course in PHP and one in MySQL allowed me the opportunity to gain an early foothold in the job market.
Since those early days, I've worked as a dev across 3 countries. I now work cross-functionally with frameworks like React or NextJS, Spring Boot etc. Now and again I stumble upon a YouTube video about jQuery or PHP and I can't help but smile. It's a nostalgic reminder of where I started and how much I've learned.
What do you do for fun?
Hong Kong nighttime cityscape
Jan 2023, Mong Kok, HK
Hong Kong nighttime cityscape
Jan 2023, Mong Kok, HK
Lockdown isolation series
Mar 2020, London, UK
Surprise-end slide
Aug 2022, London, UK
Rum & coke
Apr 2020, London, UK
Cointreau cable car
Apr 2020, London, UK
The London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park, London
Mar 2019, London, UK
The Great Pagoda in Kew Gardens, London
Mar 2019, London, UK
Music instruments in the Nomadic Gardens, London (now closed)
Mar 2019, London, UK
Rainy day at Old Harry Rocks
Jul 2019, Old Harry Rocks, UK
Boats in Swanage port, UK
Jul 2019, Swanage, UK
Foggy weather over Lake District
Nov 2019, Lake District, UK
St. James' Park wildlife
Mar 2019, London, UK
Lego Beatles
Aug 2022, London, UK
One of several DJI Mini teardowns; this time replacing the in-flight auto-stabilisation controller (I think) after the latest crash
Jun 2019, London, UK
I'm glad you asked! As folks who enjoy our work, we often neglect taking enough time off, relaxing, exercising and so on.
I like photography. As a hobby, I used to collect vintage lenses, play with drones, build drone (singular). Then break drone on the first landing attempt… Anyway, these days I rely a lot on the convenience of my phone to capture moments and edit photos.
I am an avid consumer of YouTube. When I'm not watching tech videos, I'm probably watching a science channel or video games channel. Though I now primarily indulge in mobile RPGs, I still enjoy chatting about all kinds of video games.
As far as reading goes, I nowadays consume most of my books in audio format. My usual topics of interest are science-fiction or fantasy books, as well as a lot of stuff about soft skills development, human psychology and emotional intelligence, books about ways of working and leadership skills etc.
When I'm not doing one of the things above and I'm not on vacation, I'm probably at the gym, doing a bit of weightlifting. Yes, I like to nerd out about fitness topics that as well.
Recent experience
Here's a few short notes about my recent professional experience. For the full picture, check out my CV.
By the way, check out what I'm learning this year and what tech I'm experimenting with in the blog section of this website.
Tarabut Gateway
Jan 2022 - Present • 1 yr 7 months • Technical Lead • Open Banking Payments Platform
Being MENA's first and largest regulated OB platform, Tarabut Gateway is redefining financial services in the region.
As tech lead of the PISP team, I led the transformation of the payments platform and API, unlocking a host of cool new features:
- Extensibility from Bahrain to the entire MENA region – an increase of over 3600% in market size
- Better UX by supporting app-based redirection, a multi-lingual UI and more – targeting improved conversion rates and client adoption
- Better DevX by removing experience rot to reduce cognitive load for integrating with our API:
- Condensed the payment initiation API from 20 request body parameters (13 optional), down to just 7 required parameters
- Simplified the overall PISP API footprint from 12 endpoints to just 2 endpoints
Technical wins:
- Our team reduced the maintenance and operational overhead, by streamlining the platform's previous 10 services, 5 databases, and 4 queues into just 2 services and 1 database
- Additionally, we adapted our tech stack to support a richer UI and UX, and to align with the company's hiring strategy
/thoughtworks
Apr 2021 - Dec 2021 • 9 mos • Technical Lead Consultant • BP mobile
With a global presence in more than 60 countries, BP is reimagining energy for people and our planet.
As tech lead of the mobile frameworks team, I supported BP in unifying their design language and building loosely coupled yet cohesive mobile app components for teams worldwide to easily integrate. Our success measure was the increasing internal adoption of the tools we developed.
We contributed our experience as a blip on the Thoughtworks Technology Radar and leveraged DORA's 4 key metrics to systematically evaluate and enhance our team's performance, fostering continuous improvement.
Sep 2018 - Apr 2021 • 2 yrs 7 mos • Senior Consultant • Various Projects
As a senior consultant, I actively supported:
- The digital transformation of a prominent UK gov department, later assuming a tech lead role. We replaced spreadsheets with dynamic and accessible dashboards, revolutionizing data sharing and presentation methods to boost operational efficiency.
- The platform upgrade of a rapidly growing Insurtech in London. Partnering with the client's tech lead to use domain-driven design principles and a strategic strangler fig approach, we transitioned their platform to a service and micro frontends based architecture.
Having an international presence, with offices in 9 countries across 3 continents, WorldFirst is a global fintech that is making it easy to do business anywhere.
As a senior developer, I supported WorldFirst in their strategic initiative to transition from a monolithic legacy platform to a service-oriented architecture. We implemented the strangler fig pattern, streamlining value delivery and optimizing the engineering department's structure through the alignment of critical business areas with small teams.
I had a keen interest in domain-driven design so I took the initiative to create a context map of the existing system. Collaborating with the systems architect for the Forex platform API, I contributed to shaping the engineering vision for the next platform version. Additionally, I facilitated meetings involving teams responsible for various services derived from the legacy platform in order to get everyone aligned. To promote domain-driven design, I presented on the topic during our brown bag sessions, championing its principles.
Previous experience
~ 2010 - Dec 2017
My journey into web development began with my self-driven projects, building websites using good ol' PHP (and even a bit of Flash with Adobe Dreamweaver – the nostalgia!). One website featured a comprehensive catalog of cat and dog breeds, while the other allowed users to send customized virtual postcards by uploading a photo and embedding their message in the image.
From 2012 to 2016, I honed my skills as a web developer in Bucharest, Romania. Working at small companies offered a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience across the entire technology stack, including frontend, backend, and databases. It was an exciting period of discovery (MySQL was more popular at that point, wasn't it?).
In early 2016, I embarked on a new chapter by joining my first large, international company, in Luxembourg: Docler Holding. In this role, for the first time, I focused primarily on backend development, working with dedicated frontend specialists database teams.
Seeking further growth, I relocated to London at the end of 2017 to join the team at WorldFirst.
Epilogue
Thank you for reading so far.
If you found anything interesting, you learned something or found a typo, go ahead and tell me about it on LinkedIn! Don't forget to check out my CV to read more about my experience.