Steven Burnett
Software Engineer at Re-Nuble
Springfield, Virginia, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolSteven Burnett is a versatile software engineer with 15 years of experience blending back-end development, DevOps, and release automation for robotics and ROS ecosystems. Based in Springfield, VA, he has made notable open-source contributions to high-profile projects like Drake and multiple core ROS 2 libraries (rcl, rclcpp, rclpy), where he focused on build systems, dependency management, action clients, and CI/CD improvements. His career bridges scientific R&D and engineering—he holds a PhD in Chemistry and has led product development and inventory management efforts in biotech and AgTech, bringing rigorous experimental thinking to software problems. Steven routinely improves developer experience by removing fragile dependencies, automating releases, and hardening cross-language client libraries. He also writes clear technical documentation and release notes, making complex systems more accessible to users and integrators. Colleagues describe him as a pragmatic problem-solver who quietly haunts legacy build systems until they behave.
15 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Santa Monica CollegeDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Chemistry, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Chemistry at Howard UniversityBS Chemistry, BS Chemistry at University of Hawaii at Manoa
Stackoverflow
455reputation
245kreached
15answers
0questions
Github Skills (64)
dependency-management10
git10
change-tracking10
c-language10
package-management10
rc10
python10
sphinx10
testing10
build-system10
cmake10
cicd10
release-management10
automation10
changelog10
Programming languages (23)
Github contributions (5)
ros2/ros2cli
Nov 2018 - Jul 2020
ROS 2 command line interface tools
Role in this project:
Automation Engineer / Build & Release Engineer
Automation Engineer / Build & Release EngineerContributions:2 reviews, 12 commits, 9 PRs in 1 year 8 months
Contributions summary:Steven primarily contributed to updating the version numbers in the `setup.py` files across multiple ROS2 CLI packages, indicating a focus on release management. They automated the skipping of CLI tests on Windows due to observed pathological behavior, suggesting involvement in build and testing automation. The commits also reveal the addition of a new action component. These actions highlight work related to improving the build and release process, along with CI/CD pipeline management.
command-line-interfaceros
ros2/rclpy
Aug 2018 - Jul 2020
rclpy (ROS Client Library for Python)
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:28 commits, 34 PRs, 74 pushes in 1 year 11 months
Contributions summary:Steven primarily focused on implementing and enhancing the rclpy library, a ROS client for Python. Their contributions include implementing node parameters and parameter services, adding a method for setting the parameters callback, and publishing parameter events, which significantly expands the library's functionality. Additionally, the user worked on refactoring and improving the internal structure of the code by converting to f-strings. These changes demonstrate an understanding of the library's architecture and contribute to its usability and maintainability.
pythonros
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