A little bit about me...

There's nothing more satisfying than taking an idea and making it reality. Whether I'm writing a new piece of software, starting a company, or making music with friends, what excites me is creative problem solving.

I write full stack software using ReactJS, Redux, Typescript, GraphQL, and Ruby on Rails, and I have experience integrating code with a variety of cloud-based web services. My programming skills span the full stack of technologies required to construct and maintain a modern, professional web application.

As a principal software engineer at Wurl, I've developed key pieces of company architecture. Some of my projects include the UI re-design of Wurl's TV set-top platforms, a millisecond-accurate calendaring system for building channel lineups, and the caching mechanism for Wurl's channels API, which delivers 125+ streaming channels to over 50 million viewers across the U.S. and Europe.

I've been helping businesses leverage technology to meet their goals for over a decade. In 2006, I co-founded a music-technology company with a mission to democratize the digital distribution of recorded cover songs. Sold to Spotify in 2018, the company managed millions of licenses for independent musicians across the globe. I designed the company’s beta software system to automate the collection and organization of artist metadata.

In addition to my start-up experience, I've been a member of the music faculty at the Grammy-award-winning Ragazzi Boys Chorus and the Nueva School for gifted learners.

When I’m not writing code, you'll find me at the park with my kids, going for a run in the redwoods, working outside in the garden, or preparing a home-cooked, family meal.

Resume

EXPERIENCE

Lead Sofware Engineer, Bay Tree Learning (2023-current)

  • Built special education eCommerce platform with 30k+ subscribers using AWS EC2 and Wordpress.
  • Launched and continuously improved Blending Bingo, a responsive iOS and web app developed with React Native and Typescript, achieving 76% growth in downloads while ensuring zero error incidents during use.
  • Created POC, full-stack literacy progress monitoring application in 2 weeks using PostgresQL, GraphQL Ruby (Rails), React, Apollo GQL and Material UI.

Principal/Staff/Senior Software Engineer, Wurl/Applovin (2016-2023)

  • Developed millisecond-accurate, Redux-based channel scheduler used by Hollywood studios like A&E, Bloomberg, and AMC, ensuring seamless, accurate playout for 170m+ viewers.
  • Instituted team release process reducing in-production hotfixes by 98% and reduced system build time by 72%, increasing developer efficiency.
  • Consulted on technical implementation of team features, evolved system design towards scalable microservices, and mentored 5 junior team members.
  • Devised API caching strategy to reduce server errors by 90% using asynchronous Sidekiq workers, Redis caching, and JSON document storage.
  • Led stand-ups, sprint planning and retrospectives, reviewed 200+ PRs for coding best practices, and coordinated technical project requirements between stakeholders.
  • Planned and implemented re-architecture initiative to separate an 100GB / 250-table data store and persistence layer shared by five Ruby applications.
  • Constructed performant, cross-model search on PostgreSQL with trigram indexing for fuzzy string matching, and re-indexed database search index for 200%+ speed increase.
  • Managed team of 5 engineers building video ingestion, scheduling systems, and scalable APIs that distributed 4000+ linear channels to streamers such as Roku, Samsung TV Plus, and Twitch.

Music Faculty, The Nueva School (2011-2016)

  • Coached gifted & talented students in piano and voice for performances, including appearances with the San Francisco Opera, London Philharmonia Orchestra, and national honor choirs.

Co-founder, A Cappella Records, acquired by Spotify as Loudr (2009-2011)

  • Designed beta CMS for company that managed over one million compositions from 250 major music publishers.

SKILLS

  • Ruby on Rails
  • Typescript
  • Node/Express
  • React (Native)
  • Redux
  • PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB
  • Snowflake
  • GraphQL/REST
  • Webpack.js
  • Docker/K8s
  • Github (Actions)
  • Redis
  • Apollo GQL
  • Babel.js
  • Rspec/Jest
  • Material-UI
  • OpenAI API
  • SCSS/SASS
  • HTML
  • AWS: S3, RDS, Lambda, Cognito, IAM, SNS, SQS, EKS, ECS, ECR, EC2, Fargate, CDK, Route 53, Cloudfront, DynamoDB, Textract, Secrets Manager, CodePipeline

EDUCATION

App Academy (2016)

Immersive, full stack web development program with <3% acceptance rate.

Notre Dame de Namur University (2010)

BFA Vocal Performance

Projects

Wurl Scheduler

A cloud-based scheduling tool that allows video producers to manage video assets and metadata, schedule program lineups, manage VOD playlists, schedule ad breaks/advertising, and launch live events.

Wurl Channels UI

An integrated set-top platform for delivering streaming television channels and video on-demand content.

ANSELpx

An app for exploring and sharing high-resolution photography inspired by 500px. View on Github.

Blending Bingo

An interactive, educational game for teaching beginning reading skills. View on web or iOS App Store.

Song Search (deprecated)

A Chrome extension that queries performance-rights organizations, ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. View on Github.

Get In Touch

I'd love to hear from you whether you have a question, need a quote, or just want to say hello. Feel free to contact me directly via phone or email, and I'll get back to you within one business day.