Steven Stout

Lead / Staff .NET Engineer

A Lead / Staff .NET engineer who owns platform architecture end to end, from REST API design through the deployment pipeline it ships on. Twelve years full stack .NET and seven fully remote. Most recently the first lead-level engineering hire at Storee, where I set the architecture, built the team, and consolidated four applications onto a single .NET 9 platform on Azure without interrupting production releases.

TheYard is a used-vehicle auction platform I built and run on Azure: 100,000 vehicles, live bidding, and the same build on Azure SQL Database and on Azure Cosmos DB. It is the working proof of how I build: read how it performs, the decision records behind each choice, the API reference and the test record of the gate every version passes.

How I lead

A team drawn in teal, formed into an arrow, with one gold figure out in front

I build the systems that make delivery boring in the best way, then coach people inside them.

  • Decisions written down. Every architectural choice in TheYard has a decision record, served from inside the running app. A new engineer reads why, not just what.
  • Tests that guard the business. Every version passes one gate before it ships: the .NET tests on both databases and the front end's unit and browser suites. The test record shows the last run.
  • Tradeoffs in the open. When the roadmap is bigger than the team, I put scope and date on the table, with the cost of each, and leadership chooses. Adding a second database was one of those calls, priced in writing before it shipped.
  • Coaching inside the system. Good systems give engineers a safe place to learn fast. My favorite part of leading is helping each person on the team become the best version of themselves.