Greg Bendes
Budapest
More than one thing at once.
I've been in the software development business for 15 years. Started as an engineer and, if I'm being honest, spent a good chunk of that time wondering why the products I helped build were harder to use than they needed to be. Turns out that's a product problem, not an engineering one. So now I'm more interested in shaping the product than writing its code.
I've also been photographing wildlife since 2017, building miniature dioramas with custom lighting and mechanical movement, and somewhere in between co-authored a chapter on artificial intelligence in aviation.
15 years in the field
I've spent 15 years building software for large enterprise clients. Chemicals manufacturing, aviation, gaming, booking, oil and gas - you name it. The industries vary but the problems rhyme: large systems, real users, consequences when things break. That sharpens your sense of what software is actually for.
Right now I'm leading the digitalization of production operations for a global specialty chemicals company. 34+ sites all around the world, Angular on the front end, form-driven workflows and industrial scheduling systems underneath. The kind of project where nothing is simple, which turns out to be useful preparation.
Wildlife, since 2017
Shot on Nikon. I'm drawn to fast-moving subjects and difficult light. The kind of photography that teaches patience and then promptly betrays it. Birds especially. It's the creative counterweight to a career spent staring at code, and it requires a completely different kind of attention. I have plans for something more serious with it eventually. Not yet, but not never.
Things built outside of work hours
-
Miniature dioramas
Small-scale scenes with custom wiring, embedded LEDs, and mechanical movement. Motors, linkages, things that turn and oscillate. Working in a constrained space is part of the appeal.
-
Arduino & robotics
Embedded systems experiments, animatronics, sensors that trigger things. Some projects are purely functional. Some are purely weird. The line blurs more than you'd expect.
-
AI in Aviation: co-author
I co-authored a chapter in Implementation Guide for Artificial Intelligence in Aviation (2023).
-
A cooperative board game
I'm co-designing a cooperative board game, still in development. The theme stays under wraps for now. Deliberate mechanics, nothing random for the sake of random.
-
A meditation app
I'm building something to help people decompress. The world keeps adding noise; I'm more interested in building software that takes some away. Early stages, but the intent is serious.
Writing, when it happens
Occasional posts on whatever I'm thinking about that week. Technology, tools, the odd observation from a hide at dawn. No schedule, no newsletter. When I write something worth posting, it goes here.
blog.gregbendes.com