Who I am
About me
I’m Steven Burton, Director of Technology at CDS, a technology consultancy that advises, builds, protects and runs critical digital services. I live and work in Leeds.
What I do
I help organisations make better technology decisions. Not by knowing every framework or chasing whatever the industry is calling itself this year, but by combining deep engineering experience, systems thinking, and a pragmatic understanding of people, delivery and quality. Most technology problems turn out to be decision problems — what to build, what to stop, who to trust, when to change course — and that’s where I’m most useful.
How that judgement was earned
I studied Computer Science at university and started my career as a tester at a medical company. Testing taught me the habits I still rely on: ask awkward questions early, care about the whole system rather than your corner of it, and judge work by the difference it makes to the people using it.
From there my scope has widened one step at a time: tester, quality leader, engineering leader, technology director. Over more than a decade in testing and quality I worked across many teams and roles — hands-on testing, test automation, continuous delivery pipelines, and leading quality in agile teams. I was a Senior Consultant at Infinity Works, wrote for Ministry of Testing and TEST Magazine, and spoke and participated in the testing community in Leeds and beyond.
These days the systems I work on are bigger, and most of them are made of people: technology leadership, engineering strategy, delivery, and helping people grow their careers. The instincts are the same ones testing gave me. The job titles have changed along the way; the thread running through them hasn’t. Role by role, the whole route is on the experience page.
About this site
This site is where I think in public. The writing isn’t the product — it’s evidence of how I approach problems, and it’s the best way to decide whether my judgement is worth your time.
Between 2017 and 2021 I blogged as Testers find a way — the name was a nod to finding a path through whatever a project throws at you, and the old masthead was a signpost on the Cleveland Way. That writing lives on here as an archive, kept as originally published. New writing covers the wider ground above.
What I keep returning to
Say hello
If you’re wrestling with a technology decision, building or rebuilding an engineering organisation, or just want to compare notes, I’m always happy to talk.
- linkedin.com/in/steven-burton — the best place to reach me
- GitHub
- github.com/steveburton4
- RSS
- /rss.xml — everything I write here, as I write it