Robert is the sole proprietor of Semiotic Scaffolding, LLC, a software development company. With over 15 years of Clojure software development experience, Robert specializes in functional and data-oriented programming and AI / machine learning. His strengths include designing, implementing, and maintaining robust and scalable systems, and solving complex technical challenges that demand leadership, collaboration, and communication skills. He has achieved success in building and delivering high-impact feature sets and products such as LLM-based summarization and ranking for malware threats at Cisco, a custom payouts system at Starcity, and TalkIQ's real-time intelligence augmentation interface for sales reps and customer service agents. Read more...
Our philosophy of software development emphasizes functionally sound, maintainable, and coherent systems. We build on the experience of applying the data-oriented engineering and architecture values of Clojure and event-sourced stream processing.
Our name comes from biosemiotics, the scientific discipline that studies signs and meaning-making processes within living systems. In biosemiotics, "semiotic scaffolding" refers to networks of semiotic interaction that maintain functionally cohesive, meaningful organization-- both at the ecological level and in the constitution of agents. As Jesper Hoffmeyer explains it, "nature in fact is not so much about “tooth and claw” as it is about sensing, interpreting, coordinating and social co-operation."
“Nature in fact is not so much about tooth and claw as it is about sensing, interpreting, coordinating and social co‑operation.” —Jesper Hoffmeyer
Like biological systems, modern software systems are large, essentially complex, and grow organically. In order to keep them healthy in the sense of being able to continue updating them and adding new functionality, we need their code to be comprensible and organized in ways that reinforce intentional structure, at both mechanical and narrative levels.
This is particularly vital as we enter an era of agentic software in which our systems are comprised of interacting components with some degree of appropriately scaffolded autonomy. Programming skills will continue to be a valuable of knowledge for engineers, but increasingly there will be an additional need to narratively scaffold software behaviors in reliable and predictable ways.
Whether your needs are better served by traditional software development or systems involving the use of generative AI, Semiotic Scaffolding is able to provide appropriate and future-proofed solutions.
Ready to discuss your project? Reach out at robert@semioticscaffolding.com .