Senior software engineer with 15 years building and modernizing production systems across TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, Python, PHP/Laravel, React, SQL, and AWS. Deep experience in payments, identity, payroll, eCommerce, and data-intensive applications. Takes solutions from discovery and architecture, through implementation and production support without disrupting the people who depend on them.
Skills & Technologies »
- Languages - TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, PHP, SQL, Bash
- Backend & APIs - Node.js, Laravel, Symfony, Flask, REST APIs, OAuth 2.0, integrations, WebSockets
- Frontend - HTML/CSS, Responsive Design, React, Svelte, Vue, Vite, esbuild, Playwright, Chrome Extensions, Sass
- Data - PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, SQLite, Redis, PostGIS, pgvector
- Cloud & Operations - AWS (EC2, Lambda, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC, Route 53, ALB/NLB, SQS/SNS, AMIs, Transfer Family, CloudWatch, Elastic Beanstalk, ECS), Docker, Terraform, Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL), CI/CD, GCP, Azure
- Observability - Grafana, ELK, Datadog, Graphite/StatsD, InfluxDB
- Security & Domain - PCI DSS, OAuth/identity, OWASP, payments/subscriptions, payroll/timekeeping, eCommerce, analytics
Experience »
SpotOn - Senior Software Engineer
San Francisco, CA - remote; Dec 2023 - Aug 2025
Restaurant POS, multi-tenant payroll, timekeeping, tips and gratuity, and back-office automation.
- Led architecture and delivery of a greenfield Go/TypeScript/React timekeeping platform on PostgreSQL, extracted from legacy PHP and serving hundreds of restaurants and thousands of employees.
- Took Earned Wage Access from discovery and vendor evaluation through design, implementation, pilot, stakeholder alignment, and production launch across payroll, tips, and gratuity.
- Architected and implemented a staged FTP-to-SFTP migration for ~20 payroll partners using AWS Transfer Family, Lambda, RDS, S3, IAM, and VPC networking, eliminating plaintext PII while preserving uninterrupted partner access.
- Modernized partner integrations, reporting, and internal authentication onto Laravel/AWS across MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB while the legacy platform stayed live; carried on-call for timekeeping, tips, and payroll products.
- Owned US side of technical interview pipeline for US/India engineering expansion, 50+ interviews with ~10 hires.
Independent - Software Engineer
San Diego, CA; Aug 2025 - Present
Independent engineering engagements spanning data platforms, cloud infrastructure, applied AI, generative and creative tooling, and full-stack product development.
- Engineered custom ComfyUI nodes in Python and JavaScript, including a responsive canvas-based masking node using WebWorkers that studio artists adopted over the built-in workflow.
- Built a GPU-accelerated C# digital-signage application delivering smooth, high-framerate Ken Burns-style media playback.
- Replaced a full-browser acquisition layer with browserless HTTP, increasing sustained throughput from roughly 20-50 to 200+ requests per second while preserving session and browser-behavior requirements; built custom proxy infrastructure and a control surface with failover, orchestration, and full observability.
- Architected and delivered a production data-acquisition and classification platform that collected hundreds of terabytes of imagery for specialized AI training datasets.
Independent - Software Engineer
San Diego, CA; Aug 2022 - Dec 2023
Independent product and web-application engineering spanning financial publishing, Commerce, and selected CMS work.
- Extended Model Investing with Laravel-backed economic data, from-scratch retirement and investment calculators, performance dashboards, charting, and a responsive financial-publishing platform.
- Delivered WordPress, Shopify, and eCommerce work on the self-authored Bootstrap 5/Vite/Sass Boilerplate framework.
- Built a live cryptocurrency market-data platform in Node.js using WebSockets to aggregate continuously updating data for trading and market analysis.
Alsoa - Software Engineer
San Diego, CA; Aug 2021 - Aug 2022
Cookieless attribution and server-to-server conversion-tracking platform.
- Designed server-side identity reconciliation across customer, order, advertising-click, and CRM identifiers, enabling attribution from ad spend through CRM outcomes without browser cookies.
- Built the event-ingestion and conversion-delivery pipeline in TypeScript and Python, a React administration dashboard, and the GCP production environment across Cloud Functions, Pub/Sub, Firestore, and Firebase.
- Delivered a PHP Magento extension connecting merchant checkout events to the platform's server-to-server conversion APIs.
YourSix - Senior Software Engineer → Director of Engineering
Roseville, MN - remote; May 2020 - Jun 2021
Cloud-based physical-security and video-management platform.
- Designed and shipped the production Svelte single-page application for live video, playback, and device control, integrating Auth0/OAuth and delivering the customer-facing experience ahead of a hard external deadline.
- Promoted to Director of Engineering, grew the organization from 3 to ~10 across the US and Sweden through hiring and planning, and remained a substantial hands-on contributor.
- Built a unified JSON REST adapter over legacy SOAP/WSDL and Axis O3C protocols across dozens of device types, with portions carried forward into the production platform.
ServiceAbility - Co-founder & Founding Engineer
San Diego, CA; Jun 2019 - Jan 2021
Commercial and residential internet serviceability, pricing, qualification, and onboarding platform.
- Co-founded ServiceAbility as sole technical founder, building the full platform for telecom serviceability, pricing, qualification, and contract onboarding.
- Built live-lookup automation across 20+ ISP provider surfaces and interface-drift detection that reported changes and quarantined affected integrations until repaired.
- Normalized fiber routes, lit-building data, provider points of presence, broadband-quality signals, proprietary datasets, and live provider APIs into a single PostgreSQL/PostGIS model.
Ebates / Rakuten - Senior Software Engineer → DevOps Engineer
San Diego, CA; May 2015 - May 2019
Cash-back rewards, authentication, payments, and eCommerce platform.
- Architected and implemented Rakuten's centralized US OAuth 2.0 platform in PHP/Laravel, serving consumer, mobile, and service-to-service authentication and processing millions of requests during peak shopping events.
- Built the Node.js execution platform behind a PCI-DSS-compliant universal shopping cart, automating product normalization, cart creation, vaulted-payment checkout, and cashback validation across 30-40 storefronts; led the technical workstream for Rakuten's first successful US PCI DSS audit.
- Transitioned into a DevOps Engineer role supporting and migrating production services on AWS across EC2, RDS, ALBs, Route 53, and SQS under zero-downtime cutover requirements, carrying on-call for the card-affiliate cashback platform.
Selected Projects
- Boilerplate - Author and maintainer of Boilerplate, an open-source WordPress parent-theme framework continuously evolved for 15 years and used across 20-25 production sites, with Bootstrap 5, Sass, Vite, configurable light/dark theming, parent/child extensibility, and a companion Docker environment. (source)
- Raspberry Pi PWM fan controller - Open-source C daemon for hardware-level thermal control on Raspberry Pi, managing low-level interrupts to dynamically adjust fan speeds. (source)
- Long-running Minecraft server - Operate the 4th oldest Minecraft server, approaching 16 years online, maintaining JVM, Linux, and MariaDB infrastructure, cost-conscious observability, uptime, and a long-running community.
Earlier Career »
- Independent - Software Engineer; San Diego, CA; ~2013 - 2015. Ran an independent software and web practice serving ~30 paid clients across custom applications, WordPress/WooCommerce, eCommerce, subscriptions, and hosting, with full-lifecycle ownership from discovery and design through deployment and long-term support.
- Leepfrog Technologies - Software Developer; Iowa City, IA; Sep 2012 - May 2013. Contributed to the production CourseLeaf platform and built bespoke Oracle PeopleSoft and Banner import pipelines for 10-20 universities, including Cal Poly and Notre Dame.
- 2nd Story Software - Web Developer; Cedar Rapids, IA; Jun 2012 - Sep 2012. Maintained and improved TaxAct in ASP.NET and JavaScript, developing calculators and interactive guides for deduction and dependent scenarios under stringent IRS compliance requirements.
- Premier Guitar - Technology Manager, Web Developer, Photographer; Marion, IA; Oct 2011 - May 2012. Led a Joomla-to-WordPress migration as sole developer, moving thousands of articles and user accounts without significant publishing downtime and supporting launch- and artist-driven traffic spikes.
- Metro Studios - Senior Developer, Development Manager, Director of IT & Server Administration; Hiawatha, IA; Mar 2007 - Oct 2011. Delivered or influenced 40+ custom applications and eCommerce projects, helped grow the web department from 3 to 8-9 people, introduced stronger engineering processes, and managed infrastructure hosting 100+ client sites.
- Yellowbook USA - Server Engineer; Cedar Rapids, IA; 2006 - 2007. Managed redundant Linux and Windows infrastructure across two data centers and helped consolidate a full rack of artwork-processing systems into a compact 4U VMware ESX environment.
Education »
Coe College - Cedar Rapids, Iowa; 2005-2008
- Studied computer science and art.
- Built a custom CMS and VMware server stack that powered coe.edu for over a decade.
Full resume & portfolio available online at johnmparks.com