Builder. Full-stack developer. Python enthusiast. AI practitioner focused on sovereignty. I love software craftsmanship, tinkering with technology, and designing solutions to real-world problems. I prioritize product usability through user feedback and documentation, and I focus on simplicity and maintainability. I have a growth mindset and seek to learn new things. Everyday. I choose practicality over purity. I enjoy good team work, genuine collaborations, and trustworthy open-source communities.
Experience
Independent Platform and Software Engineer with AI-focus
Building and administering a Proxmox server and a privacy-first local AI lab: two tracks that sharpen entreprise-grade skills. Homelab — virtualization with Proxmox Virtual Environment, Linux administration, networking, RBAC and zero-trust access control, data storage and backups, containers and orchestration, infrastructure as code and CI/CD, evolved following community best practices. Local AI — serving open-weight models on my own hardware with sandboxing and audit logging; prioritizing privacy, sovereignty, reliability, and performance; exposing the stack to any agent framework or harness with secure remote access from any trusted devices, anywhere; Learning and experimenting with new tools and practices.
- System Administration / Virtualization (Linux, Proxmox Virtual Environment)
- Infrastructure as Code (cloud-init, Terraform, OpenTofu, Packer, Ansible) / CI-CD (GitLab)
- Secure Networking / RBAC / Zero-Trust Access (UniFi, VLAN, Firewall, Pangolin)
- Data Sovereignty / Storage / Backup (TrueNAS, Proxmox Backup Server, S3-compatible storage)
- Containerization / Orchestration (LXC, Docker, Kubernetes, Helm)
- Privacy-First Local AI Model Serving (DGX Spark, llama.cpp, vLLM, Ollama)
- Model-Agnostic Frameworks / Harnesses (Pi, LangChain, CrewAI, Buzz)
- Efficient Decision-Making Agentic Workflows (Open-Source System One Models)
- Self-Hosting Applications and Services
- LLM Evals (Promptfoo) / RAG (LlamaIndex) / Rust Fundamentals
Software Engineer (Platform and Infrastructure)
Designing and implementing secure cloud and on-premises solutions to monitor distributed systems. Driving continuous improvements using open standards and best practices. Escalating, root cause analyzing and resolving software defects and performance issues. Peer-reviewing code to maintain quality and sharing knowledge across teams. Writing user needs, requirements, acceptance criteria, test cases, and technical documentation. Leading software verification activities during product releases to ensure quality and compliance with technical requirements. Supporting field engineers with software installations, patching, and upgrades. Investigating field issues, assistance requests (ARs), customer complaints, non-compliance (NC), and participating in post-mortem analysis.
- Cloud and On-Premises Monitoring Solutions in Distributed Systems (Grafana, Fluent Bit, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus)
- Peer-Review (git) / Knowledge Sharing (blogs, wikis, Confluence)
- Features Implementation / Product Demonstrations (Docker, Kubernetes, Helm)
- Software Quality and Life Cycle Management (Azure DevOps)
- Issue and System Verification for Product Release (Azure DevOps)
- Technical Documentation and User Guides (Zensical)
- Remote Technical Support / Investigation / Troubleshooting on Production Systems (SSH, VNC, RDP)
Software Engineer (Applications)
Designing and implementing code and algorithms for radiotherapy treatment management and planning applications. Resolving defects in advanced algorithms for medical image analysis. Testing (unit, integration, end-to-end) to ensure software quality. Peer-reviewing code and sharing knowledge across teams. Following design and development processes to ensure accuracy, safety, and compliance with medical software regulations. Documenting development processes and maintaining traceability in accordance with quality management system requirements. Creating and maintaining CI/CD pipelines. Collaborating with DevOps engineers to optimize automated test execution within CI/CD pipelines, reducing manual effort and improving release confidence
- Applications and Algorithms Development (Python, .NET)
- Peer-Review (git) / Knowledge Sharing (Zensical, Confluence)
- Software Quality and Life Cycle Management (Azure DevOps)
- Automated Testing in CI/CD Pipelines (Azure DevOps, PowerShell)
- Issue and System Verification for Product Release (Azure DevOps)
- Technical Documentation and User Guides (Zensical)
- Safety and Compliance with Medical Regulations
Research & Development (Doctorate)
Designing, developing, testing, documenting, and packaging software. Creating an innovative pulse shaping framework (shapr) to overcome major challenges in the domain of ultrafast spectroscopy. Designing novel data acquisition techniques and data processing algorithms. Managing laboratory equipment and assets (lasers, spectrometers, spatial-light modulators). Maintaining and optimizing high-power femtosecond lasers (oscillator, amplifier, stretcher, compressor). Investigating light-matter interaction to understand and control the dynamics of energy conversion and transfer in macromolecules.
- Research in Applied Physics and Development of Novel Data Acquisition Methods (shapr)
- Scientific Computing and Data Analysis (Python, numpy, scipy, numba, matplotlib)
- Web and Application Development (Qt, Flask, plotly)
- Software Development Life Cycle Management (SDLC)
- Source Control (git, dvc) / Documentation (mkdocs, Sphinx) / Testing (pytest, hypothesis) / Packaging
Research Assistant (Internship Program)
End-to-end construction of a nonlinear optical parametric amplifier (NOPA) for broadband optical pulse generation. Including research, design, assembly, simulation, and optimization of the system.
- Research in Applied Physics
- Physics Literature
- Scientific Computing
Projects
shapr
A pure-Python library to push forward scientific progress in ultrafast spectroscopy using pulse shaping techniques via spatial light modulators (SLMs).
- Based on: bokeh / colorlog / coverage / docopt / dvc / flit / hypothesis / json-tricks / lmfit / matplotlib / numpy / pillow / pre-commit / pyinstaller / pyqt5 / pyqtgraph / pytest / scipy / screeninfo / shiv / sphinx / sympy / tabulate
andor
A pure-Python library to control the hardware of Andor cameras, spectrographs, and spectrometers. Developed to be integrated with the shapr library.
- Based on: flit / matplotlib / numpy / pillow / pre-commit / scipy / sphinx
avantes
A pure-Python library to control the hardware of Avantes USB-2 spectrometers. Developed to be integrated with the shapr library.
- Based on: fire / flit / matplotlib / numpy / pre-commit / scipy
git-conventional-changelog
A pure-Python command line tool to generate changelogs (.md, .html) from the history of any git repository by following best practices (semantic versioning, keep a Changelog, conventional commit)
- Based on: docopt / flit / pre-commit / pyyaml / requests / sphinx / toml
module
A Python web application developed to open new ways to do spectroscopy.
- Based on: click / flask / jinja2 / lmfit / matplotlib / mongodb / numba / numpy / pillow / plotly / pymongo / pyyaml / redis / requests / scipy / sphinx / sqlalchemy / tikzplotlib / wtforms
Education
The Institute of Applied Physics Bern, Switzerland
The Institute of Applied Physics Bern, Switzerland
The University of Le Mans, France
The University of Le Mans, France
References
Alexander Houben, AI Lead and Manager, Siemens Healthineers
Your domain expertise and structured way of thinking have proven genuinely valuable to the Monitoring and Observability team, helping to clarify uncertainties early and better align expectations on features implementation and defects resolution. Your passion and exceptional communication skills are vividly displayed during demos, training sessions, and peer-to-peer conversations. You act with high agency. Your proactive mindset and drive to grow are consistently demonstrated through your actions and interactions with your peers. Your desire and ability to continuously learn is admirable and you rarely settle for the status quo. You strive to improve current solutions and inspire others to do the same. You often step boldly to assume responsibilities beyond your role and core competencies. Ultimately, your contributions have made you a go-to person for all things related to monitoring and observability.
Uddhav Ghanekar, Lead, Technical Process, Siemens Healthineers
I enjoyed working with you for your strong work ethic, attention to detail, and ability to quickly identify and resolve issues. You consistently took ownership of tasks and delivered reliable results, even under tight timelines. You are a dependable and results-driven professional who consistently delivers quality work. Your attention to detail, quick troubleshooting skills, and commitment to continuous improvement would benefit any employer.
Marko Peltonen, Senior SW Engineer, Siemens Healthineers
You are professional, competent, and take full responsibility for your work. Your directness in key situations is refreshing and helps the team address challenges head-on. Your pro-active approach helps solve problems before they arise. Any employer would benefit from hiring you for your meticulous attention to detail and thorough approach to tasks. Your natural curiosity and drive to learn ensure that you are constantly growing and bringing new insights to the team.
Agnieszka Pazdan, Manager, Siemens Healthineers
You possess profound specialist know-how and extensive experience in your entire area of responsibility. You are able to balance efforts with results. You deliver commendable work of high quality and effectively transfer knowledge across the team. You always communicate clearly, precisely, and present topics in lucid and structured ways. You are highly dedicated and have exceptional attention to detail. Flexible and open to change, you recognize the value of enhanced processes and play an important part in putting them into practice. You readily take on extra responsibility, can act independently, demonstrate initiative, and show a strong commitment in your work. You put yourself at the service of clients and attach considerable importance to building sustainable relationships. You develop practicable ideas for improvements and actively support their implementation.
Jari Turunen, Manager, Project Management, Siemens Healthineers
I came to know Stephen as a competent professional who consistently delivers on agreed matters with solid commitment. He proved to be dependable, responsive, and always willing to provide support when needed. His collaborative approach made him one of the constant performers regarding the activities we worked on, and I am confident he will continue to make a positive impact wherever he works.
Shahzad Butt, Senior SW System Architect, Siemens Healthineers
I liked working with you. You are very pleasant, calm, and focused. You are a problem solver and are exceptionally knowledgeable within your domain. Any company would be lucky to have you.