Stig Bakken

Stig is a hands-on technical leader with over 30 years of experience in Linux, distributed systems, software- and data engineering. His career spans senior roles in high-stakes environments at Yahoo!, Google, TietoEVRY and Huawei.

He began programming at age ten on a Commodore 64, and got his first job developing games at 16. He discovered internet through the world of MUD games, where he spent a literal year of his life logged in before turning twenty. An autodidact who helped shape the early internet, Stig was a member of the PHP core team, and part of building NTNU’s FTP Search, the world’s most visited of its kind.

At Sunstone, Stig describes himself as a mentor and tool builder, dedicated to enabling the team to do "more with less" by automating the repeatable and securing the complex so that researchers can focus on what matters most. Driven by a wish to make a difference for the future of his four children, he treats Sunstone as a sandbox for meaningful innovation.

Stig unwinds through Taekwondo, though he jokingly describes himself as a "perpetual red belt" because he can never quite find time for the black belt graduation. You may also find him as a DJ with Bakklandet Dubcore, exploring visual effects and bass music for fun, or with his family creating high-tech eccentricities. The weirdest thing they built, according to himself, was a ghost vacuum cleaner for his son’s cosplay. And maybe the programmable "Eye of Sauron" in the attic window for Halloween.