Stuart Woodward - CEO, Hanamaru K.K.

CEO @Hanamaru K.K.

JapanITBusiness OwnerEngineerConsulting🏐 SportsBusiness AnalystComputer engineerSystem ArchitectSystem AnalystDevOpsQA EngineerWeb DeveloperDatabase DeveloperData ScientistData EngineerData Analyst

I am an independent technologist and business owner in Japan with a background in computer engineering and several decades of hands-on experience in software development, systems engineering, and data analysis in Tokyo and for with large Japanese and foreign companies. My work focuses on Python-centric tooling, cloud platforms (notably GCP and BigQuery), automation, and applied statistical modelling for operational and predictive use cases. I am particularly interested in building maintainable, data-driven systems that integrate analytics, forecasting, and LLM-assisted workflows. Alongside technical work, I explore the practical use of language models as programmable agents and decision-support tools, with an emphasis on clarity, cost-awareness, and real-world deployment. Born in the UK, I moved to Japan in 1988 and have lived their continuously since then.

Hanamaru K.K.Senior Software Architect

Oct. 2012 - Mar. 2019Within 23 wards, Tokyo, JapanInitial onsite assignment in the UK supporting the development of a cutting edge virtualisation hosting platform based on VMware. Acting as a bridge between the Tokyo Testing and Project Management team & the developers in the UK. Support involved triaging defects, multicultural meeting facilitation, server side troubleshooting & investigation. Second assignment is based in Tokyo supporting the Japanese Operations Team: Source code level debugging and investigation & push toward resolution of problems with a high impact to customers. * Creating tools to analyse logs & report who are the affected customers. * Follow up on issues with the off-site PMs & Devs to resolve & bring them to a rapid closure. * Investigation of usage & performance issues relating to VMware VCD (vCloud Director) API. Log analysis of 3 million lines to indentify 143 unique patterns. Investigation of the route cause of OVA upload failures. * Investigation of VM hangs due to Linux kernel problems. Route cause analysis of kernel panics & remediation strategy planning. * Automation of Cisco ASA firewall configuration validation using Python, Postgres and Selenium. * Facilitation of teleconferences between Japan & Europe involving interpretation & cross cultural translation. Crisis management liaison between Japanese & European Engineers. * Creation of documentation in Confluence including automation using the Confluence API. e.g automated reporting on the commits between tags in a Git release branch. * Automated performance testing of API calls in the Production environment to identify bottlenecks. * Investigation of database issues related to firewalls and resolution of the problem at the TPC/IP level. * Software development using Python & Django. * Management & planning of Production Changes. Investigating & explaining the risks and impact of the change to the stakeholders & parties concerned. * Defect management with the emphasis on route cause analysis. * Server automation using Ansible.

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