Hi, I’m Steven

I’m a software and systems architect bringing clarity from complexity. I build cloud-native solutions that serve real needs and deliver genuine value, without the over-engineering. My focus is creating architectures that align with business goals through clear design, solid security, and straightforward paths forward.

I believe architecture starts with human connection, thrives on genuine commitment, and succeeds by honoring agreements. Good architecture balances technical tradeoffs. Great solutions start with trust and maintain that trust through principled execution.

Why Hire an Architect?

Architects bring unique value that neither business stakeholders nor individual developers can provide on their own. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

Translate Business Needs into Technical Reality

Business stakeholders speak in outcomes, market pressures, and customer value. Development teams speak in code, APIs, and frameworks. I’m fluent in both languages.

Business Values: Faster time-to-market, reduced operational costs, competitive advantage, risk mitigation

Technical Values: Scalability, performance, availability, maintainability, security

Outcomes: Clear architectural characteristics derived from business priorities, shared understanding across stakeholders and teams, aligned technical decisions

Evaluate Trade-offs and Inform Decisions

Every technical decision has costs. Microservices bring independent deployment but introduce distributed system complexity. Cloud brings elasticity but can explode budgets. The job is assessing what you’re giving up to get what you want.

Business Values: Informed risk management, cost predictability, strategic investment

Technical Values: Appropriate complexity, sustainable architecture, performance vs. cost balance

Outcomes: Transparent decision-making, documented trade-offs, stakeholder buy-in on technical direction

Balance Short-Term Delivery with Long-Term Strategy

Architecture decisions are strategic, long-term, and expensive to change. They affect multiple teams over years. The challenge is balancing immediate delivery pressure against long-term maintainability, extensibility, and cost.

Business Values: Sustainable velocity, reduced technical debt costs, platform longevity

Technical Values: Evolvability, extensibility, modularity, technical debt management

Outcomes: Systems that scale with the business, reduced rework, faster feature delivery over time

Enable Teams Through Clarity, Not Control

Effective architecture isn’t about dictating every decision. It’s about defining appropriate boundaries: the non-negotiables that must be consistent, the principles for making local decisions, and the examples teams can adapt.

Business Values: Team autonomy, faster decision-making, consistent quality

Technical Values: Architectural integrity, design consistency, innovation within guardrails

Outcomes: Empowered teams that make sound local decisions, reduced architectural drift, sustainable development pace

Navigate Technical and Organizational Complexity

Architecture doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Success requires negotiating with business stakeholders who want everything immediately, collaborating with other architects who have different priorities, and working alongside developers to implement solutions that actually work.

Business Values: Stakeholder alignment, reduced conflict, predictable delivery

Technical Values: Cross-functional coherence, integration integrity, implementation feasibility

Outcomes: Consensus on direction, buy-in across teams, realistic commitments

Let’s Connect

I’m always interested in connecting with fellow engineers, architects, and technical leaders. Whether you want to discuss architecture patterns, share experiences, or explore collaboration opportunities, I’d love to hear from you.

I regularly share insights on software architecture, system design, and engineering leadership on LinkedIn. Follow along for practical perspectives on building scalable systems.

What Others Say

Arash Didehbani

Staff Software Engineer - Tech Lead

“Steven is the employee every company wishes they had. When faced with difficult tasks or issues he is the go to for quick and precise solution. He is not only your best coder, he is also your architect. He approaches every coding challenge with the goal of never having to modify the code again. Building Configurable systems is his biggest strength. He takes a specific requirement for a ‘Right Now’ implementation and turns it into a generic adaptable solution. He makes all future coding for other developers a breeze. He tries very hard sticking to SOLID principles as long as it does not compromise the performance of a system. He constantly hungers for new challenges. I have worked with him for over 7 years and hope to continue working with him in the future.”

Isaac Carter

CTO, Author, Creator of the Catalyst Framework

“Steven is a great person to work with. He has an understanding of the big picture that is astounding. He is as capable of point the way for resources that need guidance and he is rolling up his sleeves and getting a task complete himself. The balance between intellectual theory and practical application is not easy to maintain, but Steven makes it look easy. I enjoyed working with Steven and hope to have to opportunity again soon.”

Bharath Narayanan

VP of Engineering

“Steven is a very talented engineer I have had the pleasure to work with, his attention to detail and quality of code delivered has always been of exemplary levels. He has tackled some impressive projects and provided great results. It was a pleasure working with him during my time in Cottonwood.”