stage.tech (Buma Stemra)

senior software engineer, contract · united kingdom · november 2023 to may 2024.

impact

• the project was two years in with 13% project completion. it was in the red and project failure was imminent. i brought project completion to 55% in the first month.
• a badass scd type 2 auditing system, written along the way. it tracks billions of royalty records a day. every change to who is owed what is kept, along with the one before it.
• the team moved again. i was transparent about where we were, i planned and organised the tasks, and i showed it could be done, nights and weekends included. the contract hung on those deadlines. we succeeded, 100%, at the end.

the organisation

buma stemra is the netherlands’ collecting society for composers, lyricists and music publishers. it was founded in 1913, has over 40,000 members, and distributes more than €250 million a year to the people who write the music. stage.tech held the contract to rebuild its royalty distribution platform. i was brought in when the project had stalled.

what i did

the audit model and its pipeline. the plan, and the pace to match it. java, aws, lambda, snowflake, postgresql.

what it meant

i knuckled down as a contractor and put hope back in an unmotivated team. a team moves when someone shows it can.