Steven Barnett

Starting in mainframe operations, I taught myself programming and moved to a Systems Programming role, being responsible for managing implementation and support of a range of IBM mainframe operating systems. While I started in-house, this quickly expanded into the scary world of consulting where I got to do really dangerous things to many major services organisations. It's what also taught me the value of proper planning and thinking on my feet!

As PC's became popular I added PC application development to my capabilities. Being relatively new at the time, people didn't have a "role" as such, so my job was to do the initial requirement analysis, design, development, documentation, distribution, support and help with the marketing. I'm fairly sure that qualifies me as a full-stack developer. The applications I wrote were used both in-house and sold to a number blue-chip clients in the UK, US and South Africa.

Since getting into PC development, I've never looked back. Technologies change, programming languages change but the constant challenge to produce appliations that solve real problems for real people remains the most fun part of my job.

I've developed as a sole developer, developed as a member of a team and developed while managing the team. Even after these years, the buzz of seeing my code to work and do something useful continues to drive my enthusiasm for all things software.