Principal Engineer
Principal Engineer | Technical Strategy & Architecture
50+ Architecture Calls. 3 Escalated. The Rest I Wrote Down.
I make the calls others escalate — and write down why.
Decisions Made
50+ architecture calls across a 289-endpoint migration serving 53 markets. 3 escalated. $336K+ savings validated by finance. ADR discipline that survived team turnover.
When Source Code Didn T Exist
Reverse-engineered Acucobol via bytecode analysis, producing 45+ migration specs. Built a 34-agent AI framework that cut schema mapping from weeks to hours with 90% error reduction.
When principals disagreed on migration approach, I evaluated tradeoffs, committed to phased strangler pattern, and shipped with zero major incidents. Trust earned through written records and predictable outcomes.
Execution Log
Creator & Lead Engineer
Creator & Lead Engineer
Created TRW, an open methodology framework for AI-assisted software development. Built persistent memory, structured workflows, and quality gates so AI coding agents compound discoveries across sessions and projects instead of resetting to zero.
Designed framework architecture with 6-phase execution lifecycle, quality gates, and 19 MCP tools. Made architectural decisions for multi-agent coordination, persistent memory, and cross-platform integration.
Built multi-agent team coordination with specialized roles (lead, implementer, tester, reviewer) and file ownership validation. 2,600+ tests with automated verification.
Launched beta across 5 coding platforms. Architecture decisions documented as the framework methodology itself. Standards that survive because they're built into the system.
Staff Software Engineer | AI Systems Architect
Staff Software Engineer | AI Systems Architect
Promoted to Staff from Engineering Manager (2+ years total at Unicity, Nov 2023 - Jan 2026). Led AI-powered modernization for a global platform (53 markets). Built the multi-agent system that made 289 endpoint migrations possible. (IC track — AI migration systems and tooling)
Decision Ownership: Made 50+ architectural calls autonomously during 289-endpoint migration, escalating only the 3 decisions with multi-year organizational impact. Leadership trusted the judgment.
Dispute Arbitration: When teams disagreed on migration approach (big-bang vs. strangler fig), evaluated trade-offs, committed to phased strangler pattern. Result: zero major incidents, 96% traffic migrated.
Digital Archeology: When source code didn't exist, found another way. Reverse-engineered Acucobol via bytecode analysis, producing 45+ migration specs (50K+ lines).
Engineering Manager / Technical Lead
Engineering Manager / Technical Lead
Hired to migrate a 289-endpoint legacy system to Laravel. Achieved 96% production traffic with zero major incidents while driving $336K+ annual cost savings. (Management track — platform modernization and delivery)
Led migration of 289 API endpoints achieving 96% production traffic on Laravel, delivering 34% faster response times and 4x order processing improvement (300→1,300 orders/5min).
Achieved $336K annualized savings (FinOps tags + invoices): cloud infrastructure ($278K), DataDog optimization 62.5% ($12K→$4.5K/month), RDS consolidation ($32K). Removed 500,000 lines legacy code.
Built production observability infrastructure: implemented on-call rotations, automated alerting, monitoring dashboards, and a real-time debugging toolkit (Redis/Xdebug/BPF) reducing MTTR by 95% (incident logs, 90-day window).
Diagnosed Redis pooling issue achieving 95% DNS resolution improvement and 97-98% OTP auth improvement.
Mentored 10+ engineers through 185+ 1:1 sessions with career frameworks and growth records. CTO recognition: 'Tyler is AI' for innovation leadership. Built the kind of team where people stayed through hard projects — zero attrition during the entire 289-endpoint migration.
Led first load test in company history—5 sessions, zero system failures, 85-90% confidence for peak traffic. Attended every strategic meeting throughout tenure.
Built 50 per-developer daily/weekly metric reports tracking adoption and bottlenecks per-ticket/per-feature/per-developer; built 0→1,500 automated test cases driven by business requirements from tickets and QA features.
Principal Engineer
Principal Engineer
Promoted to Principal Engineer from Senior Lead (4+ years total at ButcherBox, Jul 2019 - Oct 2023). Owned architecture decisions for a platform processing $2B+ in transactions. Led cross-team architecture, pioneered early GenAI adoption, and single-handedly led flagship Instacart and Shopify integrations.
Platform Strategy: Shaped 4-year technical roadmap for $2B+ transaction platform, advising executive leadership on build-vs-buy decisions and architectural investments.
Executive Partnership: Provided strategic technical guidance across Operations, Customer Service, and Engineering, influencing product roadmaps and risk mitigation strategies.
Innovation Leadership: Pushed GPT-3 adoption (2022, pre-ChatGPT) before anyone was asking for it. Built the ROI case that freed AI tooling budget across the organization.
Flagship Execution: Single-handedly led and delivered the Instacart integration—ButcherBox's most visible partnership—owning architectural design, cross-team coordination, and executive visibility end-to-end over 6 months.
Senior Lead Software Engineer
Senior Lead Software Engineer
Joined right before COVID hit and order volume went through the roof. Built the Operations engineering team from zero (just me) to 9 engineers, broke it into specialized squads, then transitioned to lead all three teams through a monolith-to-microservices migration during COVID-19 10x traffic surge.
Built Operations engineering team from 0 (solo) to 9 engineers, then broke it into specialized squads: Operations backend, CS Support (Zendesk dashboard app), and backend API migration team.
Transitioned to lead all 3 teams simultaneously—12 engineers total across Operations, CS Support, and API migration—with clear ownership and delivery accountability.
Engineered backend optimizations handling 10x traffic surge during COVID with zero scaling incidents, while competitors experienced significant downtime.
Built platform recognized internally as gold standard for Testing, Stability, Documentation, Innovation, and cross-department collaboration.
Led migration from monolithic architecture to Event-Driven Microservices on Azure and Kubernetes, establishing patterns adopted company-wide.
Boosted application performance by 87% in first 90 days by refactoring critical backend paths and React frontend—establishing immediate credibility.
Principal Engineer
Principal Engineer
Recruited to a specialized task force working under Sir Tim Berners-Lee to engineer decentralized data ecosystems (Solid). Led a team of 6-8 remote developers rescuing a failing insurance fintech project.
Rescued failing insurance platform 6 months behind schedule by restructuring architecture and coordinating 6-8 remote developers—delivered on-time with zero regulatory compliance issues.
Delivered real-time quoting engine handling complex state-specific regulations for all 50 states, processing quotes in under 2 seconds across 200+ rule variations.
Kept the client in the loop with weekly demos. The team was remote and under pressure, but we shipped on time every week.
VP of Engineering & Lead Systems Architect (Founder)
VP of Engineering & Lead Systems Architect (Founder)
Founded and scaled a cross-border e-commerce marketplace from Zero-to-One, serving complex trade and financial flows between China and the U.S.
Technical Co-founder: Defined architecture vision for international e-commerce platform spanning AWS (US) and Aliyun (China), solving 'Great Firewall' latency at scale.
Strategic Partnerships: Negotiated and architected integrations with 19+ payment gateways including ICBC (world's second-largest bank). No payment infrastructure, no transaction volume.
International Recognition: Won 2nd place at an international technology competition in China. Credibility isn't claimed; it's placed by a panel of judges.
Founder & Principal Solutions Architect
Founder & Principal Solutions Architect
Led a boutique engineering consultancy delivering full-stack solutions for enterprise clients. Operated as Fractional CTO.
Secured and executed multiple NewBalance.com contracts, directing performance engineering that improved page load times 40% and increased conversion rates measurably.
Operated as Fractional CTO for 5+ enterprise clients simultaneously, managing end-to-end SDLC and establishing engineering standards that outlasted engagements.
Delivered performant, scalable web applications using Node.js, PHP, and Angular—building a consultancy with 100% client retention rate over 4 years.
Senior Software Engineer & Team Lead
Senior Software Engineer & Team Lead
Led engineering of a high-volume, multi-channel e-commerce automation platform.
Led development of multi-channel sales automation achieving +1,700% YOY sales and -44% overhead reduction (shipping -44%, labor -17%) within 1 month of deployment.
Designed centralized inventory orchestration engine integrating Amazon, Overstock, NewEgg, and 6+ additional marketplaces into unified platform.
Managed team of 4 (3 developers + designer) developing MLM/Direct Sales management platforms from conception to production.
Built the linters, templates, and coding standards that every team at the company ended up using.