About Me

I’m a software architect and manager with over 20 years of experience in the industry. I’ve worked on everything from small startups to large enterprises but have recently specialized in building out growth stage startups. I’ve been programming in Go since 2011 and am a big fan of the language and its ecosystem. I have used Go for building out simple microservices to greatly accelerate backend team development. In my free time, I’m a woodworker (hence my cover image) but I also enjoy a big refactor. Refactors often feel like breaking down a code base with a saw to put it back together again in a beautiful way. I’m interested in AI and the potential to transform software development and the world.

I tend to get fully immersed in my work, which has been in the fitness and wellness space for the last 10 years. I use my Tonal for strength training on a weekly basis.

Experience

Aescape

Aescape builds a robot that can give you a massage. I joined the company in 2023 as the Director of Software Architecture. At the time, Aescape had a working prototype and were looking to launch commercially. I built out the backend architecture that supported delivering custom massage content, business needs like scheduling and billing, and fleet management. I also worked with the robotics teams to harden the robot’s software and test the hardware at the factory.

Fireside

Fireside is a platform for interactive live video experiences. I took over as the manager of the backend engineering team in charge of the API and video platform. I shipped ticket-based payments and scaled the API by 100x in 2 weeks.

Tonal

Tonal is a smart strength training machine. I joined the company in 2018 as the Director of Software Architecture. I designed and built the video infrastructure to drive personalized and interactive workout experiences. I designed and built the Go microservices architecture for Tonal’s backend that provided consistent 5 9’s of reliability through massive company growth.

Fitbit

Fitbit is a smart wearable company. I joined the company in 2015 through the Fitstar acquisition and managed the Activity and Exercise team and later the Programs team.

Fitstar

Fitstar was a fitness app maker that I joined in 2013 as a software developer. I worked on scaling, analytics, online ML to dynamically adjust workouts, creation of personalized yoga and strength training programs, and more. I later managed Fitstar’s Android team.

ngmoco:) / :DeNA

ngmoco:) was a mobile game platform company that I joined in 2010. I worked on the backend and infrastructure for the company’s games. I worked in Ruby on Rails and built an authentication gateway in Go.

Telmate

Telmate was a company that was a provider of inmate calling services that I joined in 2008. I worked on a custom Asterisk PBX, backend development in Ruby on Rails, DevOps (before it was called that), custom kiosk builds and deployment and more. I spent way too much time in jail there. If you want to hear a wild startup story, ask me about the time the FBI confiscated all the servers in our data center.

Responsys

Responsys was/(is?) an spamemail marketing platform. I worked on the backend Campaign and List Management systems. I worked in Java and spend a huge amount of time fixing compile warnings on the 12 year old code base. I tried to evade the eye of Sauron (Larry Ellison) beaming from across the street at the Oracle towers; long after I left, the company eventually was subsumed by the forces of Mordor.

Intel

Intel was a world-leading maker of microprocessors… unclear what they do now. I worked as a Product Engineer on two Itanic processors. My job entailed writing software to validate the product met specifications (which it did not) and then screening manufacturing defects (which there were many). I was told 10 years after I left, that despite explicit comments in my cache testing flow that the code should be simplified to remove crap that never shipped, the code was not only still in use, but had been ported several times and still had my original comments.

Etool

Etool was a company that was founded in the first dotcom boom. They had no clear product or vision of what the company existed for. That was common for the first dotcom boom. I managed the fullstack web team until the company ran out of money one day.

GE

I worked at GE for a short time validating hardware designs in simulation. I worked in the Industrial Systems division that made crazy stuff like 6000 amp motor drives, gas turbine controllers and a thing called an Exciter. I learned a lot about quality and reliability. The product I was working on required a 75 year mean-time-between failure and this was also when six sigma was a thing. I also learned Perl when it was still cool.

LOF / Pilkington

Libbey-Owens-Ford was a glass company that made plate glass mosty for cars. I worked as an intern in the Research Center. This was a crazy internship because, about a week after I started, the nearby factory went on strike and the engineers at the Research Center, including me, were sent to the factory to help keep the lights on. I learned a lot about glass and the manufacturing process and saw them start up the molten tin float by manually hooking the glass and pulling it across the float. I got to see actual relay-based ladder logic in action. I eventually got to work on some software and drove a project to port the VMS-based plant automation to Linux. I had to write a Linux device driver for an IO card they were using. I also got to write some “modern” PLC ladder logic to control some conveyor belts.

Keithly Instruments

Keithly Instruments was a company that made test and measurement equipment. At the time, they were making a device to test the properties of silicon wafers. I worked as an intern testing the software which often had to happen in a clean room. I also did some test automation. I remember being a pretty horrible employee, but it appears the UI didn’t change in nearly 30 years according to this document from 2022, so maybe I wasn’t that bad. I also wrote some 3-D wafer data visualizations in C++ and OpenGL.

Oak Spring Cemetery

Oak Spring Cemetery is a cemetery in Canonsburg, PA. I like to say that I was a “grave digger”, but that’s actually what a backhoe is for. I did fill in a few by hand though. I mostly did a lot of weed whacking and tree trimming. This is where I learned the low value of hard work and that I never wanted to do a manual labor job again. Also, that it’s impossible for me to get a tan.