Cambridge, UK
Useful systems, clear explanations, and work worth reading twice.
Taking on two writing projects this winter
By the numbers
essays and guides published
years in research engineering
readers of the newsletter archive
I build software that helps small teams understand their own information, and I write about how it works so that other people can build it too.
Most of my work sits between engineering and editing: designing a search tool, then writing the guide that makes people trust it; untangling a data pipeline, then explaining the decisions in plain English.
I care about clear prose, honest numbers and documentation that survives the person who wrote it. This issue collects recent work, notes and essays.
— Rowan Blake
Open any case note to read it in full.
Cover feature · Case study · 2026
A search and reading tool for a library’s digitised collection, built with screen-reader users from the first prototype. The case note covers the decisions, the trade-offs and what we would do differently.
Six essays on running research software in small organisations: budgets, handovers, and the documentation nobody asks for until it is missing.
Author
A practical guide to building data pipelines you can still understand a year later, with worked examples and a checklist for reviews.
Maintainer
A small full-text index for personal archives that runs on a laptop and explains every result it returns.
Teacher
A two-day workshop on design documents, decision records and release notes, run for engineering teams.
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D
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Guides, documentation and explainers for software and research teams.
From £550 a day
Prototypes and tools for search, data and reading, built to be handed over.
Quoted per project
Writing for engineers: design docs, decision records and release notes.
£1,800 for two days
2021 – Present
Software and writing for libraries, research groups and small companies.
2017 – 2021
Built the group’s data platform and its documentation; ran the internal writing clinic.
2015 – 2016
2012 – 2015
A notebook on useful software. Essay collection, independent press
Talk: documentation that outlives you. A research software conference
The pipeline guide. Free online edition
Writing for engineers. Workshop run for four teams