I’m a widely experienced software engineering leader looking for remote or hybrid opportunities near Boulder CO, USA.

Summary

I’ve built software my entire life. I’ve worked on networking infrastructure, solar electric vehicle control, airborne RF systems, a computer vision SDK for mobile apps, payment processing for billions of dollars in transactions, moved money onto the blockchain, and more. That’s meant that I’ve had to learn new technologies quickly as well as understand how to how to work well with people, including leading multiple teams, communicating effectively with executives at large enterprises, or consulting individually to small business customers.

Experience

Software Engineer, Meso

September 2022 - April 2023

I worked on building a crypto payment on-ramp using Go. I led the architecture for the risk system and participated in overall system architecture and API design.

Senior Software Engineering Manager, PayPal/Braintree

July 2012 - June 2020

Payment processor Braintree was acquired by PayPal in 2013. Shortly afterwards I joined the Braintree organization.

I led an organization of 20 people split into three teams, responsible for building and maintaining all of the alternative payment method processing (including PayPal and Venmo) within the Braintree system. During this time we:

  • Grew transaction volume from the low millions to more than two billion dollars per month.
  • Collaborated across the company to drive reduction of API errors and lower spurious declines.
  • Grew a team of 4-5 engineers into a larger organization of 20 with external hiring and attracting talent from within the company.
  • Developed and launched a new GraphQL API.

This meant that I personally:

  • Contributed directly to the Ruby on Rails codebase.
  • Worked with internal solutions engineers and met with end customers to ensure the right solution was implemented.
  • Presented to executive leadership to drive company wide focus on API quality.
  • Architected novel solutions to problems, two of which were patented.
  • Was the site lead for Braintree at PayPal’s Austin site, leading the effort to bridge the gap between the PayPal enterprise and Braintree startup cultures.

Principal Software Engineer, card.io

July 2011 - July 2012

card.io was the first mobile computer vision solution to allow credit card entry by camera. It was acquired by PayPal in 2012, and open-sourced later that year. Although the product hasn’t been supported for many years, it continues to be used by major brands today.

I served as the technical lead for the Android SDK and fraud control efforts as well as making contributions to the computer vision backend and iOS SDK, using Java, Objective-C and Python.

Founder, Smartovation Technologies

August 2009 - July 2011

I founded a contract development firm specializing in development of mobile apps. Clients included Sprinkles Cupcakes, Emirates Airlines, and more.

Computer Engineer, NAVAIR

September 2007 - August 2009

NAVAIR is the Naval Air Systems Command, a civilian agency within the US Navy, responsible for procurement of aircraft and airborne weapons systems. While there I:

  • Developed Hardware in the Loop (HiL) test capability for an airborne ultra-wideband digital RF receiver.
  • Lead Technical Point of Contact for two SBIR technology development projects involving digital wide band RF receivers.
  • Developed a maximum likelihood algorithm for classifying RF signals using Matlab.
  • Wrote real-time control software and VxWorks device driver to control a custom built RF signal generation HiL environment to test a rocket flight computer using C++.
  • Mentored recent college grad new hires.

Graduate Techincal Intern, Intel

Summer 2006

I designed and created an open source application test suite for the 1.0 release of Linux utility xdg-utils. As part of the freedesktop.org Portland project, the xdg-utils are designed to provide a set of controls to providers of Linux software that work regardless of distribution or desktop environment using standard Linux shell tools.

Software Engineer, Nistevo

2000 - 2003

  • Developed and maintained a Makefile driven build and test system.
  • Developed a new test framework for QA.
  • Undertook a variety of build automation tasks in support of product integration.
  • Served as lead developer for business reporting.
  • Administered an enterprise integration package during the go-live period. Created automated monitoring and recovery tools in Perl.

System & Network Administrator, Znet

1997 - 2000

  • Installed and maintained web, mail, FTP, NNTP, and dialup services on Linux.
  • Migrated legacy servers from Windows to Linux.
  • Installed and maintained dialup and WAN equipment.
  • Consulted to customers.
  • Built software for customer support to automate account maintenance in PHP.

Education

Master of Science: Computer Science

2005 - 2007

My primary area of study was machine learning and computer vision, with additional coursework in robotics and embedded systems.

Bachelor of Science: Mathematics

2003 - 2005

In addition to the full time coursework for a Math degree, I was a member of the 2nd place 2005 solar vehicle team, serving as lead race strategist and embedded software developer.

Patents

  • US9858405 - Systems and methods for authenticating a user based on a computing device
  • US20220156750A1 - Conditional Transaction Pre-Approval