About

The short version

Fifteen years turning "can you just make it pop?" into web platforms that survive contact with production. I co-founded a Brussels agency, Cherry Pulp, helped grow it from 4 to 20 people, shipped 200+ platforms, and stuck around until it got acquired. These days I'm Lead Developer at CBTW, working through my own company STEPHANZYCH — still suspiciously hands-on for someone with "lead" in the title.

What I actually do

The unglamorous stuff that makes everyone else faster: architecture, tooling, conventions, developer experience. I build the boilerplates, CLIs, and standards that turn "every project is a special snowflake" into "every project boots the same way and nobody cries on deploy day."

Frontend is home turf — but I'm full-stack enough to be dangerous across the JavaScript and PHP worlds, and opinionated enough to tell you which one your project actually needs.

The path so far

By the numbers

A few names you might recognise, who trusted me not to break their websites: Unicef · Oxfam · Engie · Delhaize · Telenet · KBC Brussels · RTL · RTBF · Monizze. No pressure.

Plot twist

I didn't come up purely through computer science. I studied fine arts at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles and visual narration at ERG, then landed at ULB doing computer science. Turns out composition, hierarchy, and obsessive attention to detail translate scarily well from a canvas to a component library. I still draw system diagrams like they belong in a gallery.

Off the clock

  • AI-assisted workflows & local LLMs — running models on my own hardware, because the cloud doesn't need to know everything.
  • A Docker-based homelab — self-hosting is a personality trait now, apparently.
  • CLI utilities & terminal nerdery — yes, this entire website is a terminal. No, I won't apologise. (I've even given the talk: "Terminal utilities & advanced use cases.")
  • Prototyping in Rust, Go, Python, and C# — and building little games in Godot when I want pixels instead of pull requests.

Why work with me

Because I've sat on both sides of the table. As a co-founder and CTO I learned that the code is the easy part — the hard part is scope, trade-offs, and building foundations a team can move fast on for years. You get someone who:

  • Thinks in systems, not tickets — architecture, tooling, and conventions that keep paying off long after launch.
  • Has the receipts — 200+ shipped platforms means I've already made (and fixed) most of the mistakes so your project doesn't have to.
  • Stays hands-on — I don't draw the diagram and disappear; I'm in the codebase.
  • Translates — I'll talk budget with your CEO and generics with your junior dev in the same afternoon.

FAQ

Are you available for work?

Depends on the work. Interesting problem, decent humans, a little respect for craft? Let's talk — email me.

Frontend only, or full-stack?

Frontend is home turf, but I'm full-stack enough to be useful across the JavaScript and PHP worlds — and honest enough to tell you when you need a specialist instead of me.

WordPress? Really?

Really. Done properly — Bedrock, Sage, actual conventions — it ships institutional and editorial sites that non-developers can run themselves. The snobbery is a luxury most projects can't afford.

Why does this site look like a terminal?

Because I like terminals, I had opinions, and "tasteful and forgettable" is the worse crime. While you're here, try typing : — or :whoami.

Wait — can I actually SSH into this?

Yes. ssh stephan.zych.be drops you into the same site as a real terminal UI — no browser, no JavaScript, just a Go program piped over SSH. Same content, rendered twice. Press : and run ssh to copy the command, and read how it works.

Can you work with my existing team?

That's most of what I do: raising the floor for a whole team through tooling, conventions, and mentoring — not just adding one more pair of hands.

Say hi

I'm in Brussels 🇧🇪, I speak French natively and English professionally, and I'm always up for a good conversation about architecture, terminals, or why your build is slow. The fastest way is the contact page — or type :whoami in the command palette to see who you're really talking to.

The business behind the bytes: STEPHANZYCH (STEPHAN ZYCH SRL) — VAT BE 0804.229.671, Brussels. It's the company I work through, including my role at CBTW.