Building things, one curiosity at a time

My parents taught me I could figure things out. The internet showed me I could build them.

Early curiosity

I was born in Kutno, a small town in central Poland. I lived there for about 18 years.

My first computer was an Atari 65XE with a cassette reader. I spent hours loading games from tapes, waiting for the familiar screech that meant something was happening. More than playing games, I wanted to understand how everything worked.

I had a strong instinct to take things apart and put them back together. Radios, TVs, PCs, electronics that came without manuals. By age 7 or 8, I was known in my family as the living instruction manual. If something needed setting up, I could figure it out.

Sometimes there were parts left over and it still worked. Sometimes it did not.

I asked for computer games every Christmas. I loved the escape, the worlds I could explore. But I also loved understanding how they worked. Why did some games load faster? How did the graphics appear on screen? What made the sound effects happen?

This curiosity continued through my teenage years. I played games, but I also wanted to know what was happening under the hood. I learned by breaking things first and understanding them later.

University years

I moved to Poznań to study Automation and Robotics. It was a natural fit. I met fantastic people. We are still in touch to this day, even with some of us living in different countries and continents. I did my Master's in Reprogrammable Control Systems.

Most of my projects focused on systems that had to work end to end, across hardware and software.

I built a Pong game on an FPGA, simulated elevators in software, designed a SCADA system for real infrastructure and used OpenGL to model water networks.

I kept very active throughout my youth. Semi-professional volleyball, gym training and swimming during university. Sports reinforced discipline, consistency and a competitive mindset. These weren't just hobbies, they shaped how I approached work and life.

Moving to the UK

Two weeks after my university graduation, I left Poland and moved to the UK. I drove from Poland directly to Bristol with a friend. No job. No accommodation. No fixed plan. Just curiosity and a willingness to embrace uncertainty.

My first job was in Swindon at Alcatel-Lucent. I built automated systems to validate signal quality of remote radio heads. It was a fun job where I met wonderful people. My English improved from broken to functional, mostly by listening to colleagues explain things I pretended to understand. But I soon needed something bigger. London sounded like a great opportunity. Also, it was time to move on from Swindon.

Career at Gamesys and Bally's

I joined Gamesys in 2013, which later became Bally's Interactive and then Bally's Intralot. That was 13 years ago. I've grown from Lead Developer in Test to Principal Staff Engineer. The consistent themes have been tinkering, system building and practical experimentation.

Over time, the work shifted from building systems myself to shaping how teams build them, while staying close enough to the work to understand where complexity actually lives.

These days I optimise for decision quality, system longevity and reducing hidden complexity.

I spoke at Saucecon, an international testing conference in San Francisco. I talked about expanding test coverage and maintaining confidence in automated testing. It was a great experience sharing what I'd learned with the wider testing community.

Side projects

Side projects have always been how I explore ideas without permission or constraints. Some are on GitHub, though not everything makes it there.

• Automated RC car controlled via gyroscope and operated through a mobile browser
• Lego Mindstorms EV3 cot rocker built when my daughters were babies
• Speakform: voice to text capture
• TextStyle: real time text refinement and grammar improvement

The pattern is consistent: building tools that reduce friction and improve how humans interact with technology.

Running

Most of my adult life I have run at some point. However, over the last few years, running escalated from a challenge into a practice.

That included a 100 km charity ultra, 12 marathons in 12 months and now training for a mountain ultra in the Dolomites.

I use running as a tool for self-understanding, mental resilience and emotional regulation. The key insight: growth comes from consistency, not from single events. Early mornings alone in darkness, rain and cold were more transformative than race days. Endurance training improved my focus, patience and empathy. It shows up in how I parent, relate and collaborate.

Family

I'm married and a father of two daughters. Family is central to my priorities and motivation. Everything else flows from that foundation.

We travel as a family when we can. New places reset my attention. The best days are simple: good food, a small adventure and a story the kids keep retelling.

Today

Today I'm a Principal Staff Engineer, still building systems and still curious about how things work. The journey from that kid in Kutno taking apart electronics to where I am now wasn't linear, but it was consistent. Curiosity led to understanding, understanding led to building, and building led to more curiosity.

I didn't end up building robots like I might have imagined as a kid, but I'm proud to be an engineer. I'm grateful to my parents for encouraging that early curiosity, and to those strangers on the internet who showed me I could build anything.

I write to clarify my thinking and leave useful artefacts behind for others who are still curious.