Software engineer with over 20 years of professional experience. Played a key role in the development of WordPress, elevating it from obscurity to the dominant web publishing platform it is today. Enjoys building high-performance, secure, and accessible web apps with modern frameworks like SvelteKit, Astro, and Laravel. Passionate about learning new technologies, creating robust systems, and sharing knowledge.
Strengths
- Problem solvingExcited by new challenges. Thrives when given a difficult puzzle to figure out.
- CuriosityConstantly learning new approaches and technologies. Always open to new information and feedback.
- IterationBelieves perfection is a process, not a leap.
- Systemic thinkingDigs down to the kernel of an idea, and maps out its connections with the rest of the organization and its goals.
- MentoringConsiders teaching the best way to learn what you really know and help people maximize their impact.
- CommunicationPractices clarity, compassion, and team alignment as the cornerstone of successful projects.
Tech Skills
- Agentic Coding
- HTML
- CSS
- Tailwind CSS
- TypeScript
- JS Package Development
- Web Application Security
- Vite + Webpack
- Website Performance
- Web Accessibility
- Responsive Design
- SVG
- Cloudflare Workers
- Git
- Bash
- Redis
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- BigQuery
- GraphQL
- PHP
- VS Code extensions
- React
- Svelte
- Alpine JS
- Livewire
- Jest
- Vitest
- Playwright
Frameworks
- Astro
- SvelteKit
- Laravel
- Next.js
Education
University of Florida
(2001–2004)Warrington College of Business
Experience
Gusto
(2025–current)Staff Engineer
- Created a dynamic rendering system for complex payroll tax forms
- Built a bulk import system for payroll data
Material Security
(2023–2024)Staff Engineer
- Worked on multiple teams to develop new features and maintain existing ones
- Helped develop the backend for a new unified security platform
- Created guidelines and tooling for reducing technical debt
- Improved performance of the web application
- Authored guide for VIP clients to run the software on their own infrastructure
Strive Media
(2019–2023)Chief Technical Officer
- Led nimble teams of both in-house and contracted developers
- Created conversion tracking software, scaling to hundreds of millons of rows of data
- Developed new products using Laravel, React, SvelteKit, Cloudflare Workers, and more
- Reduced server resource usage by 71%
- Modernized tooling, resulting in 3× faster deployments
- Created unit and integration tests, leading to 11× more releases
- Optimized frontend performance
Covered Web Services
(2004–2019)Senior Web Developer
- Acted as tech lead or consultant for a wide variety of companies, including SAP, Adobe, Google, GigaOM, GoDaddy, O’Reilly Media, Salem Media Group, LiquidWeb, and more
- Specialized in web security, web performance, data migrations, and custom functionality
b5media
(2007–2009)Senior Web Developer
- Managed a network of high traffic content sites
- Standardized tooling and theming
- Optimized software deployments
- Improved site performance
WordPress
(2006–2016)Lead Developer
- Earned the title of Lead Developer on the WordPress project in recognition of contributions starting in 2004
- Contributed code, approved changes, mentored junior developers
- Developed major features, including canonical URL redirection, security APIs, and post revisions UI
- Gave talks around the world promoting development best practices
- Consulted with web hosts on improving the security, efficiency, and user experience of hosting WordPress sites