Steven Abols — engineer at a UK nuclear power company; lives locally to Rich. Personal site: www.kinetic-integrations.co.uk. Surfaced 2026-05-22 during Tim Deeson LawtechUK brief iteration as a potential TT contributor.
Relationship state: Existing — Rich and Steven have met multiple times. Not cold.
Day-job expertise: spec-writing for nuclear power systems. Directly relevant to TT’s INHERIT v2 standard work (the standard IS a spec; both code-inherit-v2 and code-inheritkit need spec-writing discipline).
Career horizon (Steven-stated; clarified 2026-05-22 ~15:00 BST): Wants to quit the nuclear day job within ~2 years (target ~2028) and become self-employed — NOT join TT or any other employer. Currently building his own AI project during evenings and weekends. Rich-counsel given: do not get carried away — Steven has a secure salary + pension; Rich has urged him to persuade his employer to make him AI champion at the nuclear company, which gives Steven AI deployment experience + CV differentiation (“engineer who deployed AI in safety-critical industry”) while keeping income security AND building the credentials he’ll need to launch as a self-employed AI/spec consultant.
Engagement preference: Value-based, not hourly. Wants to be paid for outcomes/value delivered, not time worked. Reflects his self-employed-consultant positioning — consultants who price on value, not time. Implication for TT engagement: scope must be a fixed-price project with a clear deliverable, not a time-and-materials arrangement.
Why this matters: Steven is a developing supplier-client relationship for TT — NOT a future TT employee. He wants self-employed consultancy work; TT is one (potentially several) of his future clients as he builds his consultancy. Profile is well-positioned for TT — engineer + spec-writing + AI interest + local geography + existing relationship. The 2-year horizon is for HIS self-employed launch (not for joining TT). Value-based engagement preference aligns structurally with TT’s project-strategic-position-operator-first-2026-05-22 frame — TT scopes deliverables and pays for outcomes; Steven sells deliverables and gets paid for outcomes.
How to apply:
- For any near-term Steven engagement: scope ONE concrete fixed-price project he can price-against; do NOT default to hourly.
- First engagement (Rich-decision Friday 22 May 2026, locked ~17:10 BST; small additions Saturday 23 May ~08:30 BST): Linear setup for Rich + Josh + Steven + Charis — operator-first buy-not-build call. Linear free plan covers all 4 users; first-party Claude MCP; bidirectional GitHub sync. Steven scopes: workspace structure + GitHub integration for
code-ll+ GitHub interop conventions (branch naming, PR mention syntax, Milestones+Projects deprecation, PR template, existing-issues decision, Claude MCP routing rules) + Sentry→Linear routing for Charis’s in-product feedback (Sentry widget onlegacylists.com; SDK already wired) + Charis onboarding flow + 2-3 week trial evaluation criteria + commit-vs-revert decision framework. Small additional task: trialgithub.com/multica-ai/andrej-karpathy-skills(CLAUDE.md + skills bundle from Karpathy’s LLM-coding observations; 147k stars; ~1-2 hr install + try + report). Total estimated ~9-17 hours; value-based pricing TBD. Custom-code path explicitly rejected for operator-first reasons (hidden maintenance/security/knowledge-concentration costs); Rich has been impressing this on Steven directly. - Scoping conversation scheduled Saturday 23 May 2026 in person. Discussion-points reference doc at
~/testatetech/docs-admin/external-partners/steven-abols/scoping-conversation-discussion-points.mdv1.0 (PDF in/mnt/c/Users/Richard/Downloads/Steven Abols - Scoping Conversation Discussion Points.pdf). - Follow-on engagements (if relationship works): (A) spec-writing discipline for code-inherit-v2 + code-inheritkit; (B) LegacyLists build + launch + marketing — three connected layers (build plan involvement reviewing
code-ll/docs/stage plans + thinking-partner alongside Josh; launch plan design where none exists; marketing funnel design + execution via ScoreApp + Meta ads — Steven keen on both; surfaced/expanded 2026-05-22 ~16:35 BST and 2026-05-23 ~08:30 BST — pairs with Tim Deeson’s LawtechUK Obj-3 input on Tuesday 26 May); (C) MFI will-writer prospecting via Instantly.ai — outbound campaign to recruit will-writers as future lead recipients ahead of Phase 2 MFI launch (surfaced 2026-05-22 ~16:50 BST; pairs with Tim brief Q5 partnership development + Q6 lead-routing platform integration); (γ) broader tool-stack discipline spec applying his nuclear-industry methodology; (D) Claude Code stack audit. - DO NOT name Steven in the LawtechUK Tim Deeson brief — premature; but he is real-world Q1 (maker-mode discipline — commissioning a spec-writer for tooling decisions IS discipline) + Q3 (LL launch + marketing — Steven keen on ScoreApp + Meta ads, candidate follow-on engagement for the quiz-led funnel; could complement Tim’s Obj-3 expertise input) + Q5 (partnership development — Steven is a developing consultant supplier, the kind of network TT will build through Phase 1 → Phase 2) substrate for verbal discussion if Tim asks. NOT Q4 first-hire profile substrate — Steven doesn’t want a TT job; he wants self-employed consultancy.
- For the AI-champion-at-employer nudge: keep encouraging it. Builds Steven’s capability + CV credentials for his eventual self-employed launch, without forcing premature day-job exit.
- Ask about his own AI project (evenings/weekends) — likely relevant to how his self-employed consultancy will position; may also surface complementary work TT could commission.
Engagement mode (locked Friday 22 May 2026): TT-Steven supplier-client relationship, NOT employer-employee track AND NOT partnership.
TT-provided engagement resources (Rich-decision 2026-05-23 ~08:45 BST): (1) user seat in TT’s Claude Enterprise account (Steven works with same AI tooling Rich uses; same model access; same plugins; same MCP servers); (2) steven@mediahq2.com email address for TT-affiliated correspondence (Instantly.ai outbound, partner-firm outreach, internal TT comms). Both wrap up cleanly at end of 3-month period or extension point — tied to the engagement, not permanent.
Working cadence (Rich-proposal 2026-05-23 ~09:00 BST): in-person co-working at Rich’s house — 2 evenings/week + 1 weekend session/week (afternoon or morning Steven’s choice). ~7-10 hours face-time per week. Across 3-month engagement = ~84-130 hours total face-time. Between-session comms: WhatsApp (already in use between Rich + Steven; both comfortable). Linear for tracked items; email for formal.
Tim Deeson brief shared with Steven (Rich-decision 2026-05-23 ~09:40 BST): Rich is handing Steven a copy of LawtechUK Mentoring - Tim Deeson Pre-Read Brief.pdf v1.15 alongside his own scoping doc. Implication: Steven is now inside the same disclosure perimeter as Tim — partner-firm context, trade mark, strategic anchor all visible. Steven’s understanding of Rich’s broader thinking deepens; useful framing for the LL marketing follow-on candidate (Tim’s Obj-3 + Steven’s ScoreApp/Meta interest are complementary inputs on Q3). Steven is NOT named in the brief itself per earlier discipline (premature; brief content unaffected by this share).
Framing discipline (Rich-locked 2026-05-23 ~09:35 BST): For Steven-facing first-meeting docs, avoid time-pressure framings (“what I’d like us to land by the end of tomorrow”). Steven won’t like pressure. Prefer mutual / open-ended framings (“aspects to agree before we consider proceeding; take whatever time you need”). This is relationship-shaped consultancy not transactional consulting — the framing should reflect that. Generalises: for any partner / contributor pre-engagement doc, this framing instinct applies.
Pricing ceiling (Rich-locked 2026-05-23 ~09:15 BST): £25-£30 per hour equivalent maximum. Rich-reasoning: “I have no idea what the results will be” — exploratory engagement; downside-hedge until value demonstrated. Implied bands: first project (9-19 hrs) ≈ £225-£575; full 3-month engagement (84-130 hrs) ≈ £2,100-£3,900. Steven proposes; Rich evaluates against this ceiling. If Steven proposes above, Rich shares the ceiling transparently rather than haggle silently. (Supersedes earlier wider pricing estimate “£5k-15k range” — Rich’s actual mental ceiling is more conservative.) Scoping conversation Saturday 23 May → fixed-price project β (Linear adoption playbook) as first engagement → potential follow-on projects A (spec-discipline) or γ (tool-stack discipline spec) if relationship works. Long-term: Steven builds self-employed AI/spec consultancy; TT is one of (potentially several) clients.
Partnership question (Rich-clarified 2026-05-22 ~15:15 BST): Steven has expressed interest in being a partner with Rich in some way. Rich’s position: (a) TT partnership is not possible — Rich is sole owner of TT and intends to remain so (operator-first frame includes ownership clarity); (b) Rich has no bandwidth for non-TT projects — time is fully committed to Phase 1 (~3 months solo + Claude) and into Phase 2. Resolution: paid consultant work for TT is the only viable form of “working together.” Rich frames this positively to Steven: “working for me as consultant gives you valuable experience for your self-employed launch.”
Conversation proposal (Rich-decision 2026-05-22 ~15:30 BST): Rich proposes to Steven a 3-month working relationship (review point ~late August 2026), starting with the Linear adoption playbook. Boundary stated kindly but explicitly in the Steven-facing doc.
Start date delayed to Thursday 25 June 2026 (Rich-communicated 2026-05-25 ~13:00 BST): Original implied start was sooner (Path E Stages 8 + 9 carried “Steven Day-1” framing through May 2026). New start date pushes the 3-month review point to ~late September 2026. Implication for Path E + design-spec sequencing: no quick-win pressure — Phase 7.1+7.3 of the frontmatter-standards-stack design spec (live-editor productivity gains for Steven) no longer need to land before Steven Day-1. The full Stage 7 design spec authoring (v1.1 of 2026-05-25-frontmatter-standards-stack-design.md) can proceed at deliberate pace; quick-win subset deferred. Path E Stages 8 (Linear OAuth + Day-1) + 9 (Codex smoke-test + Day-1) similarly shift their target window to mid-June 2026 onwards.
Conversation artefacts (both PDFs in /mnt/c/Users/Richard/Downloads/):
scoping-conversation-discussion-points.mdv2.0 — Steven-facing; handed to Steven; used during the meeting; addresses partnership boundary head-on; proposes 3-month structureprivate-conversation-prep.mdv1.0 — Rich-only; read before the meeting; contains pricing anchors, suggested phrasings for partnership topic, anti-patterns, walk-away checklist
Mentorship layer (Rich-recognised 2026-05-22 ~17:30 BST):
Beyond the consultant-supplier paid relationship, the working partnership has implicit mentorship value Steven would benefit from:
- Steven’s deeper aspiration is passive income. The self-employed AI consultancy is the vehicle TO get to passive income, not the destination. Rich-quoted: “he dreams of a life living from passive-income.”
- Rich has lived the full journey that Steven aspires to: (a) operating business — Hattons CV 1999 build → 2008 CEO → 2018 MBO → 2024 MVL; (b) passive income from property — 17 Montague Road, Widnes WA8 8FZ, held by Media HQ 2 Ltd, commercial lease to Halton Stairlifts from 6 May 2025, carrying value £1.78m (Aug 2025); concrete real-world example of passive-income-via-commercial-property.
- How this affects engagement framing: the 3-month relationship has implicit mentorship value alongside the paid project work. Steven gets exposure to operator + property + consultancy structuring at whatever depth he wants. Rich gets a thinking partner who’s been internalising what Rich has been telling him about operating-first / buy-not-build / passive-income horizons.
- Steven’s growth journey — harness-before-build discipline (Rich-locked 2026-05-22 ~18:00 BST): Steven has enjoyed building his own software in his evenings-and-weekends AI project. Rich’s view: Steven needs to master harnessing existing third-party tools BEFORE deciding what’s worth building from scratch. The Linear setup project is deliberately chosen as the first instance of this discipline. The Linear ↔ GitHub ↔ Claude integration is genuinely challenging (conventions; bidirectional sync; PR mention syntax; Claude MCP routing rules; existing-issue migration; state-drift discipline) — Rich envisages Steven will find it so. The difficulty is a feature, not a bug for Steven’s growth toward self-employed consultancy. Most clients will pay him to integrate existing tools cheaply, not to build bespoke systems; Linear setup is the right first instance of him exercising that. For future-Claude in TT-Steven conversations: do NOT recommend “just build a custom thing” — favour harness-existing-tools framings until Steven has proven the discipline at least once.
- Don’t make any of this explicit in writing — labelling the mentorship or the learning-journey would feel patronising. Let it emerge naturally as Steven does the work and as conversations surface his deeper aspirations.
Cross-references for the property example (live in mediahq2-docs-admin memory namespace, not duplicated here):
[[reference_17_montague_road_shared_drive]]— landlord-tenant Shared Drive + executed lease + payment-plan + invoices[[project_17_montague_road_revaluation_basis]]— Aug 2025 revaluation context (£1,550k → £1,782.5k)
Companions:
[[project-strategic-direction-refinement-stephen-attree-co-founder-consideration-2026-05-20]](parallel-but-distinct: Stephen Attree = co-founder thread; Steven Abols = stack/spec-consultant thread; both pending Rich-decision on specific engagement modes)[[project-strategic-position-operator-first-2026-05-22]](operator-first frame makes Steven’s value-based engagement preference structurally aligned — TT engages contributors on outcomes, not hours)[[user-rich-hattons-build-then-lead-pattern]](Hattons CV pattern; Steven’s potential trajectory mirrors Rich’s own — engineer becoming AI-augmented operator)