I’m a software developer specializing in soft-real time systems, including collaborative document editing, game dev, networking, video streaming, and distributed command-and-control systems.
I thrive when I’m working on products that make the world better. I’m crazy about great user experiences, solving performance & scalability challenges, and improving products based on real-world feedback.
Currently I’m contracting on the side while I bootstrap a SaaS product called SleepEasy, which offers a new take on website monitoring—built in Elixir & LiveView, of course.
Notable Elixir projects I’ve worked on
- X-Plane Flight Simulator: I was responsible for the product discovery, design, and implementation of the massive multiplayer game server X-Plane uses to let their entire mobile customer base fly in a single, shared world. You can read more about the project on the official Elixir-Lang.org’s case study written about X-Plane.
- Generac Grid Services: An Elixir app for doing real-time control of distributed, grid-connected electrical devices (generators, battery packs, home solar arrays, etc.). A lot of our work focused on improving the scalability of the system to orders of magnitude more devices, as well as improving reliability and our ability to recover from errors. We made extensive use of BEAM/OTP platform features like distribution, supervisor trees, error recovery, and more. Our GraphQL API was a first-class product, in addition to being used by our Elm frontend.
- Felt Maps: I was one of two full-time backend developers working on Felt, a SaaS app for making maps with real-time collaboration. We used Phoenix Channels to communicate with our React frontend on the maps themselves, and we used LiveView in the app’s dashboard. We also made heavy use of Oban for scheduling background work.
Podcasts I’ve been a guest on
- Elixir Outlaws Episode 127: Kansas City, Here We Come
- Elixir Wizards: Geo Mapping at Felt
- Thinking Elixir Episode 35: X-Plane’s Elixir MMO
Conference Talks I’ve given
- ElixirConf 2023: Rebuilding the Plane While It’s Still Flying, or: Large-Scale, Zero-Downtime Migrations Without Fear
- ElixirConf 2022: Delightful Multiplayer Editing with Phoenix
- ElixirConf 2021: Architecting GenServers for Testability
- Dever Elixir Meetup: Fantastic Hacks and Where to Find Them