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    Brendan Avery Baldwin

    Eagle, Idaho | (415) 533-7002 | brendan.baldwin@gmail.com | linkedin.com/in/baldwin

    Summary

    Highly accomplished Principal/Senior Staff Software Engineer with 30+ years of experience, building and scaling complex systems from early-stage startups to ROFL-scale mega-tech companies. Proven leader  in developer experience, web and infrastructure engineering. Let’s make cool things before the AI says no.

    Technical Skills

    • Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Ruby,  Go, C++, PHP, ColdFusion, SQL
    • Frameworks: Google Agent Development Kit, Lit, Polymer, Rails, Astro, React, NextJS, Angular, Koa
    • Testing: Jasmine, Mocha, Tape, Cucumber, RSpec, PyUnit
    • Tools: Git, Node, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, Memcached, Redis

    Experience

    Google - Software Engineer (March 2016 - Present)

    • Developed transpilers that consumed Lit Element code and emitted internal Soy and TSX templates.  Also built design-to-code systems which used Figma API to obtain design specs and generate TSX and other internal template language code.  Coordinated with design system and component library maintainers to enable code generation for large mature/legacy ecosystems.
    • Modernized inter-server and intra-server communications code, converting synchronous infrastructure to asynchronous generators and streaming RPCs.  First to do this particular conversion for Python tech stack, having no prior art/code committed or documentation and necessitating changes to core internal Python RPC modules used throughout Google.
    • Created and maintained critical open-source tooling in TypeScript for developers (Polymer Project, Lit) with about 2.8M current weekly downloads on NPM.  In the Polymer era that included being responsible for the Analyzer, Bundler, Web Component Tester and in Lit it was solving a lot of the packaging and testing stories, writing plugins for Koa, Karma, Jasmine, Mocha, etc.  Also developed Lit-Virtualizer, which you can watch me explain in this thrilling 15 minute tech-talk video https://tinyurl.com/virtualizer23
    • Wrote LLM multi-agent assemblies and workflows using Google ADK and OneTwo in Python to provide automated design reviews and support design system alignment.

    Google - Senior UX Engineer (August 2012 - March 2016)

    • Developed a declarative HTML-driven system based on web components with corresponding full-stack concepts (such database forms and communication channels) that would generate backend code and automate AppEngine deployment using Go, defining a new category of development for bespoke apps.
    • Built customer-facing API management services and tools for Google Cloud, improving developer experience, quota management and API adoption.  Worked on layers of a monolithic Angular application that powers the entire customer experience of the Google Cloud “Console”, built in JavaScript with Closure and later migrated to TypeScript.  All Java on the backend.
    • Worked on the developer tooling for a new API management system called Cloud Endpoints.
    • Developed bespoke API wrappers for Google Cloud APIs in Ruby.  This effort was eventually sunsetted by an automation of language-specific API client code.

    Google - Senior Web Developer (August 2011 - August 2012)

    • Engineered social graph crawlers, advanced analytics tools and data processing pipelines for social marketing insights (acquired as part of Wildfire by Google in July, 2012). Cassandra, MongoDB and Ruby, eventually migrating to C++.
    • Agile development shop, a lot of Scrum training and implementation. Applied several degrees of agile methodology in organizing a lot of work in a time of incredible growth.

    Simplebrains - Founder (AI/ML Software Development) (November 2021 - Present)

    • Freelance/consulting business developing bespoke purpose-built AI solutions: Chatbots, agentic systems, data classifiers, content production workflows and more.
    • Developing PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) software Plexl attempting to fuse together concepts from Wikis, graph databases and LLMs to make a foundational extensible kernel for knowledge work.  Deeply influenced both by Doug Engelbart’s “Bootstrapping Strategy” and Charles Simonyi’s “Intentional Programming.”

    Wizardhead - Founder (AI/ML Media Production) (December 2020 - Present)

    • Pioneered original art projects integrating AI/ML for enhanced video and music production; developed custom tools and workflows leveraging LLMs and AI models for creative media.
    • Produced original videos on commission for dozens of established music artists including: Meshuggah, Nocturnus AD, Euclid, ATER, The Drood, Fusion Bomb, The Ephemeral.
    • Produced an early (pre-controlnets era) AI video production tool called Beholder built in Python based on VQGAN and a layer-cake of tweening approaches such as RIFE to achieve cross-frame consistency in the earliest days of generative video.

    CloudCrowd - Principal Architect (October 2009 - August 2011)

    • Designed and implemented a scalable platform for hybridizing human and machine labor globally (crowd-sourcing with advanced credentialing features, workflow and peer-review elements), recognized as one of “100 Most Brilliant Companies of 2010” by Entrepreneur Magazine.
    • Developed core platform features using Ruby and JavaScript, including creating domain-specific languages (DSLs) to streamline complex workflows as well as test automation. Large distributed multi-app architecture including DataMapper, Rails, MS Word automation, RabbitMQ, MySQL.
    • Led a team of 8 engineers.

    Playdom - Software Engineer (March 2009 - November 2009)

    • Design and development of the Playdom.com destination site, PHP frontend and Java APIs.
    • Introduced and utilized modern development practices including PHP (with phpspec for BDD) and Cucumber+Selenium+Webrat for robust testing. (Acquired by Disney in 2010)

    Qik - Chief Internet Architect (May 2008 - March 2009)

    • Drove web application architecture and development strategy at Qik.com, overseeing a team of 4.
    • Managed the successful conversion from synchronous controller methods in a monolithic Rails application to handling asynchronous updates with an elastic backend worker system built on an extended version of Adam Pison’s Skynet gem.
    • Performed primary devops duties, managed Rails deployments using Capistrano, configured NGINX proxies, fixed scaling fires adding Memcached and Interlock and indices to databases as needed.

    The Point - Lead Technology Developer (January 2007 - May 2008)

    • Architected and developed a social-networking and ideologically-neutral activism-organization application from the ground-up in Rails.
    • Hired a small agile team of about 5 devs and a CTO.
    • The company would later change its focus to selling coupons, rename itself Groupon and become the fastest growing company in the history of the web at its time.  True story.

    CashNetUSA - Web Software Engineer (July 2006 - January 2007)

    • Developed Ruby on Rails front-end applications for a start-up financial services company.
    • Created HTML partial caching system that improved website performance and load times, ending resource contention and downtime due to over-utilization.

    Imagination Publishing - Senior Web Developer (Contract) (May 2006 - July 2006)

    • Short term contract, leading a high velocity 2 person effort, to develop an ecommerce site for a large national home improvement store.  
    • Completed the entire project in about 3 months in ColdFusion using Fusebox and a lot of Apache rewrites.

    Fitch Ratings - Senior Web Developer (August 2005 - May 2006)

    • Developed and maintained critical web applications (ColdFusion, Java, XML/XSLT) for FitchRatings.com and internal systems.
    • Conducted training on web standards.
    • Designed Collateral Debt Obligation reporting infrastructure, however, I do not accept personal responsibility for the subsequent economic crash of 2008.

    Citadel Investment Group, L.L.C. - Senior Web Consultant (April 2004 - July 2005)

    • Architected and developed ColdFusion-based recruiting and HR applications with SQL Server backend, integrating with Peoplesoft and RecruitMax.
    • Applied 

    Deluxe Media Management - Sr. Web Developer (November 1998 - November 2003)

    • Designed, developed, and maintained a diverse set of B2B and consumer web platforms, including online storefronts and asset management systems, leveraging a broad stack (PHP, ColdFusion, JSP, ASP, SQL-Server, etc.)
    • Sole developer of a complete show and movie catalog system for Columbia TriStar International Television, including multiple visual redesigns to correspond with branding changes over the years.

    PC Pros Information Staffing - Director of IS (September 1996 - November 1999)

    • Directed IT operations, software development and infrastructure management for 20+ servers/workstations, supervising two IT employees.
    • Wrote candidate registration/onboarding and testing software applications (Visual Basic)
    • Wrote all candidate matching and job tracking systems (Visual Basic, SQL-Server)
    • Built and maintained company website (ASP, ColdFusion)

    Education

    • Musicians Institute of Technology - Performance and Composition, Guitar/Bass (1994-1995)
    • New Trier Township High School (1989-1993)