Hey, I'm Oto.
I'm a software generalist living in the Netherlands, originally from Georgia. I've been building things on the internet since I was fourteen — first websites, then products, then the teams and systems around them. These days most of my work sits at the intersection of technology and people, which turns out to be where the interesting problems are.
A few convictions
Humanize the process
I don't believe in architecture-by-authority — decisions flowing down from a person or group that doesn't ship code. The best work happens when teams have ownership, context, and the trust to make decisions close to where the work actually happens.
Ship, then iterate
I've watched too many teams build complex systems for problems nobody validated. The instinct to over-engineer before launching is one of the most expensive habits in software. The best first version is one that's real enough for people to react to.
Simplicity is the hard part
Adding complexity is easy — any team can do it by accident. Removing it takes more skill and more courage. Most of the valuable architectural work I've done has been subtraction: merging services, cutting features, saying no.
Currently
Principal Architect at Ximedes, working on payments infrastructure and transit systems across fintech and faretech. Outside of that — usually reading sci-fi, producing electronic music, and swimming whenever the schedule allows.