What I actually do

I build products from zero to one, and I obsess over the parts most people skip: the feel of the thing, the right-sized solution, the defaults that make sense, the failure modes nobody wants to think about.

I've spent most of my career at security and intelligence companies — Lookout, Synack, Delphos — so I build with a threat model in mind by default. But the through-line isn't security. It's craft. I'm the engineer teammates have described as "the high-water mark for engineering talent" and someone who "keeps refining after most people would call it done." I'd rather ship one thing that feels inevitable than ten that feel like work.

And I lead. I've been a Director of Engineering, a CTO, and a team lead. I like building the team as much as the product — the kind of place where people feel safe enough to do their best work.

What I've built

Delphos Labs — AI binary analysis (0→1) Employee #1. Designed the platform, built the AWS infra from scratch with Terraform, the distributed pipeline (Celery + RabbitMQ), and the React/Remix product with real-time dashboards.
Studylog — cloud-native rewrite As Director of Engineering, led the rewrite of a flagship Windows product into a cloud-native web platform for pharma research — and built the team that shipped it.
Synack — security platform UIs Lead engineer rebuilding core product verticals for a crowdsourced pentesting platform. UI/UX rebuilds lifted user engagement >60% in under a year.
Lookout — malware-research tooling Lead frontend engineer for the team hunting Android malware. Custom tooling doubled research productivity. Authored the open-source OraculumJS and FactoryJS frameworks.
Ultimatum — co-founder & CTO Co-founded a crowd-fundraising platform and single-handedly built the whole stack: real-time event processing (Apache NiFi) triggering automated donations to nonprofits. React, Docker, Kubernetes on GCP.
…and side projects ClearBrief, MindMirror, OpenBathrooms, and more — the things I build for fun and to learn. See all my work →

What people I've worked with say

"Steve still represents the high-water mark for me in terms of sheer front-end engineering talent… equally passionate about doing things the right way, at a high level of quality."

— Derek Halliday, Chief Product Officer at Benchling

"Steve's patience, clarity and thoughtfulness are exactly the qualities you'd look for in a staff full-stack engineer if not a CTO. Steve is a joy to work with."

— Faye Salwin, Platform Engineer at Delphos Labs

"Steve architected and developed a cloud-native platform… passing a rigorous third-party security audit and achieving the company's first SOC 2. He also recruited and mentored a talented team."

— Brad Nemer, who managed Steve at Studylog

"A brilliant engineer… he always pushed for the right solution first and knows how to juggle complex requirements and priorities."

— Christophe Verbinnen, Principal Architect at KnowBe4

Let's build something

I'm looking for founding- and early-engineer roles — places where I can own real surface area and take something from zero to one. If that's you, I'd love to talk.

Email me Read my résumé