Systems Designer & Lead Software Engineer · London
Erwann Mest
Less to hold in your head, for the people who use software and the people who build it.
What I love most is taking load off people's minds: mine, the engineers I work with, my team's, and the people who use what we build. Fewer things to remember, fewer steps, fewer surprises.
I think beyond tickets and lines of code: in systems, workflows, and the people they serve. Software engineering, technical leadership, systems design. To me, that's one job. I want to understand how a complex system actually works (software, a team, an organisation, the way people deal with each other) and make it simpler and more humane.
Most of what I do comes down to one question: how can we help people do their best work? That question has pulled me across a lot of ground. Engineering and tech leadership, hiring, performance, developer experience, even security and how a team is organised. I'm at my best when I can make something complicated feel clear.
I like architecting a solution and then handing its execution to AI, in a deliberate, fine-tuned way, turning 18 years of experience into systems, skills, and agents that get sharper the more I use them. The point isn't to replace judgement; it's to take the repetitive work off people so they have room to think.
The best systems aren't the cleverest ones. They're the ones that leave people with clarity, autonomy, and trust. At Sony Music I spent years on the mobile team, building the apps people carry in their pocket. Now I'm on the accounting team, working on the systems that make sure the people behind the music get paid. A different kind of complexity, quieter and just as human: when the figures are right, people can trust them.
What I love most is taking load off people's minds: mine, the engineers I work with, my team's, and the people who use what we build. Fewer things to remember, fewer steps, fewer surprises.
I think beyond tickets and lines of code: in systems, workflows, and the people they serve. Software engineering, technical leadership, systems design. To me, that's one job. I want to understand how a complex system actually works (software, a team, an organisation, the way people deal with each other) and make it simpler and more humane.
Most of what I do comes down to one question: how can we help people do their best work? That question has pulled me across a lot of ground. Engineering and tech leadership, hiring, performance, developer experience, even security and how a team is organised. I'm at my best when I can make something complicated feel clear.
I like architecting a solution and then handing its execution to AI, in a deliberate, fine-tuned way, turning 18 years of experience into systems, skills, and agents that get sharper the more I use them. The point isn't to replace judgement; it's to take the repetitive work off people so they have room to think.
The best systems aren't the cleverest ones. They're the ones that leave people with clarity, autonomy, and trust. At Sony Music I spent years on the mobile team, building the apps people carry in their pocket. Now I'm on the accounting team, working on the systems that make sure the people behind the music get paid. A different kind of complexity, quieter and just as human: when the figures are right, people can trust them.
