I’m Ben Steadman, a Software Engineer at Jump Trading LLC working remotely from Colchester in Essex, England.
What do I do?
I work as part of an incredible global team of engineers to provide a state of the art platform to enable Jump to trade at the top level. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by a large group of diverse and extremely talented individuals. Personally, I’m focussed on robust data-intensive systems - from low-level systems software to distributed messaging and processing.
I have a keen interest for well-founded solutions and will often be found with my head in a research paper, textbook or my own research notes. That said, I’m constantly looking for the elusive pragmatic balance between making things work and making things work right.
I am an Open Source advocate and always strive to do my part in making Open Source software better for everyone - whether it be contributing to other projects, submitting bug reports and patches or (though not as much as I’d like) my own projects. Linux forms a big part of both my professional and personal computing.
At work I primarily use Go, Python and the occasional bit of C/C++. I have previous experience with Java and Scala.
In my own time (though hopefully at work too in the near future) Rust is my go-to language. That said, I am fond of exploring multiple languages and paradigms. I won’t list them all here but my reasoning is well summed up in “The Pragmatic Programmer”:
Different languages solve the same problems in different ways. By learning several different approaches, you can help broaden your thinking and avoid getter struck in a rut.
What else do I do?
Outside of work and software, I enjoy:
- Running, cycling and general fitness - yes I am one of those people out in all-too-tight clothing at the crack of dawn (though as a consequence I’ll be asleep rather early too).
- Hiking/Outdoor Adventure - I’m known to disappear into the mountains for a few days every now and then.
- Reading - Tolkien holds a special place on my bookshelf.
- Coffee - this one may be borderline addiction…
- Learning - though a large part of my work, learning is also something that I greatly enjoy. Whether it be Computer Science, Mathematics, Linux, History, Norse Mythology or running training strategies I find great pleasure in the process of moving from not knowing to knowing to knowing there are more things I don’t know and back to not knowing - ad infinitum.
Get in touch
See the links down below