Work Experience
Principal
Samuel Digital Works
2025+
I partner with teams on product and engineering work, ranging from hands-on development to leadership and architectural guidance. The focus is on practical solutions, clear tradeoffs, and building systems that can evolve as the business grows.
Director, Software Engineering
Viewport
January 2023 - December 2025
I ran engineering for a 20-person product and engineering org operating 25+ digital media brands. I managed six direct reports, influenced fifteen engineers across teams, and maintained zero voluntary attrition over nearly three years.
The flagship effort was consolidating fragmented frontend platforms across every brand into a single Next.js/TypeScript codebase — cutting maintenance costs by ~75%. I managed Contentful as the content backend with GraphQL, used Vercel edge functions for image optimization and newsletters, and enforced 80%+ test coverage in CI/CD. Early A/B testing initiatives delivered up to 31% revenue lift.
I also led the org's push into AI. A generative content pipeline I architected now produces 400 monthly content packages in under eight engineer-hours at less than $100/month. Multi-agent automation for Jira and release notes cut weekly PM effort by 50% and increased deploy cadence by 30%. Alongside this, I introduced SAFe, rolled out GDPR/CCPA/CPRA compliance, and ran internal hackathons that produced three prototype-ready projects.
Director, Software Engineering
eHealth
June 2018 - December 2022
I was promoted four times — Manager to Sr. Manager to Director — while leading engineering for eHealth's Medicare platforms. The common thread was measurable customer impact.
The biggest win was a platform modernization that cut LCP from ~8s to under 2.5s and lifted SEO rankings by ~20 positions. I consolidated three web properties into one high-performance domain, transitioned the frontend from legacy WordPress to Gatsby/React on a headless CMS, and led accessibility initiatives across four sites to reach WCAG compliance. I also launched a new Medicare Supplement shopping flow under the GoMedigap brand with full HIPAA adherence.
I owned conversion metrics alongside Product and Marketing, managed vendor relationships, ran penetration testing and security audits, and treated SEO as an engineering capability. On the people side, I promoted every engineer who reported to me.
Staff Software Engineer
GoMedigap (acquired by eHealth)
March 2017 - June 2018
I joined as a Staff Engineer during rapid growth and quickly moved into an engineering leadership role. The platform was a monolith handling CRM, marketing automation, PBX, real-time sales queues, lead routing, and reporting.
I stabilized and scaled that system while building out the HIPAA compliance layer from scratch. I migrated everything to AWS in under three months and became the technical bridge between GoMedigap and eHealth after the acquisition. I also modernized the backend from PHP 5 / Laravel 3 to PHP 7 / Laravel 5.
Cofounder & Head of Engineering
Metric Loop, LLC
June 2015 - March 2017
I cofounded Metric Loop to build a people-centric CRM for small and mid-sized businesses. I designed and launched Helix, a multi-tenant SaaS platform on AWS with real-time chat, document workflows, and flexible tenant-specific data models.
The architecture was a decoupled Vue.js frontend and Laravel API backend. I also built the marketing site and lead-gen tooling that drove early customer acquisition.
Software Developer & Team Lead
International Studies Abroad (ISA)
March 2013 - June 2015
I joined as a junior developer and grew into a team lead within two years, managing five full-stack engineers across internal tools and customer-facing sites. I delivered reporting dashboards, customer portals, and a secure CMS for academic advisors and university partners — all under strict privacy requirements.
I also modernized the backend from PHP 4 to PHP 5 and iterated on ISA's internal relationship management system serving students, parents, universities, and housing partners.
BS Electrical & Computer Engineering
The University of Texas - Austin
2008 - 2012
I graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering, focusing on Computer Architecture and Software Engineering.