Former Client and Coworker Testimonials

“We trust Steve with important projects. He's reliable not just in making good technical decisions, but in ensuring that he sees it through the end and doesn't have projects stretch out too long. Steve is able to learn quickly and grasp complicated systems in a short period of time. Steve never needs handholding - you give him the task and off he goes.”

— Google Staff Software Engineer

“Would you be willing to write a blog post [on the] architecture of auto complete [a greenfield project I designed and built] and its EXTREME scalability?”

— Yext C-suite Executive

“Steve is able to quickly come up to speed on new systems, and then offer new (sometimes radically different) ideas for a way to accomplish the goal, while minimizing the invasiveness of changes needed to the core system.”

— Google Senior Software Engineer

“Steve somehow manages, nobody knows exactly how, to deliver local indexes, even though he is facing one of the worst monsters Google has ever created. Without Steve's efforts to stabilize the build, I don't know what would be the status of the code. Someone has to keep an eye on what goes into the code, on the long term effects of any change, and that someone is Steve. With his experience he can tell almost intuitively how a certain change is going to break the index build sometime in the future. So he demands high standards from the people who are submitting code, and is essentially the gate keeper of the indexer.  This is not an easy job, there are myriad of teams who change the indexing pipeline, each with their own interests, myself included. Steve does what it requires, even if it means being 'the bad' guy, to make sure overall stability is maintained. I have great respect to Steve and his ability to keep in this extremely wearing out environment.  No matter under what pressure Steve is, he always finds the time to help me when I'm in need.”

— Google Senior Software Engineer

“Steve writes excellent, thoroughly tested code. He's a deep thinker and often arrives at original solutions that others wouldn't have considered. Steve is also very skilled at communicating and getting his ideas across.”

— Google Staff Software Engineer

“Steve is a great person to work with. Not only does he have fantastic technical judgment and a very broad knowledge, he also puts them to great use (to the team, the company and the project he works on). He is concerned about the things I raise, tries to do everything to sort them out, has a lot of confidence in my work, and, most importantly, shows it. I really appreciate working with him a lot, and am thankful for the many times he led me through issues encountered in production with his great skills.”

— Google Site Reliability Engineer

“Steve has great technical knowledge and personal productivity skills. He is a superb engineer, and has shown exceptional architectural abilities. He has been a solid Tech Lead. One strength that Steve possesses that few engineers can claim is a thorough understanding of business and strategic product issues. Steve is very honest and open with his viewpoints, but also willing to listen and learn to counter viewpoints. This is a most uncommon trait, and very valuable. It means that Steve can be relied upon to provide an unbiased opinion, but not afraid to express both support and disapproval. It also means that he will fairly evaluate new initiatives and policies based on their true merit, as expressed in open discussion."

— Google Product Manager

“As the mentor coordinator for Geo, I'm aware of how many engineers on Steve's team are [new hires]. At the same time, it's easy to forget -- they've ramped up very well and are becoming experts in their respective domains. I think this owes a lot to Steve's ability to teach people and spread his knowledge around. I have been helped enormously by his influence, to say nothing of his willingness to answer questions whenever I come by his desk. He was always willing to spare a few minutes answering a question, or looking at a bug to explicate its cause”

— Google Senior Software Engineer

“Steve is a proficient programmer and was instrumental in setting up the project's code and module structure, recommending code and module organizational outlines and implementing some of the modules from start to finish. Equally or more importantly when integrating with existing modules he was willing to dive into and to refactor legacy code. This is always an unpleasant task, little glory for a lot of effort but Steve always performed it without complaints!”

— Google Staff Software Engineer

“I can't believe you built me a website so quickly!”

— My wife, Carly Stern, Speech Language Pathologist

“Da da da da da da da da da da”

— Juliette Stern, age 1