Jason Katzer

Turing Labs Inc.

• Investor

  Mar 2020 - Present · 5 yrs 5 mos·Current

  (angel investor-not an employment role)

CloudPro

• Founder

  Jan 2020 - Present · 5 yrs 7 mos·Current

  I'm not just the founder, but the first user. A collection of developer productivity tools I have been working on for myself. (not an employment role— mostly a way to play with SwiftUI and some ideas on how to build better tools for my own engineering work)

O'Reilly Media

• Author

  2019 - Present · 6 yrs 7 mos·New York City Metropolitan Area·Current

  "Learning Serverless": Author of upcoming title on Serverless Compute including the Serverless Framework, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, Azure Functions, and running serverless on Kubernetes with Knative. (not an employment role)

Ramp

• Principal Software Engineer (IC7/Director)

  Jul 2023 - Oct 2024 · 1 yr 4 mos

  During my first month at Ramp— I brought bidirectional communications to the company’s communication platform. I built a system for engineers to target “chat” (slack and teams to start) with full interactivity. Buttons, forms, threads, replies etc. Allowing other feature teams (such as procurement) to deliver important notifications such as approvals to the place where the approvers are (chat). Afterwards I build up a vendor grade saas style solution to solve for “Compliance”. It turns multi-vendor, multi-region compliance needs such as KYC/KYB into a simple system with a unified interface. It had one goal in mind— reduce the friction (save time and money) of onboarding business’s to features that require compliance. It unified data collection so that multiple workflows can safely and securely interact with encrypted data from multiple sources. Turning an annoyance into a solved problem that did not require ongoing headcount or maintenance. It was designed as an “off the shelf” self-service product in the same way that Twillio solves for SMS and Stripe solves for card payments. Instead feature teams own the compliance of their products— as they should since they are the ones working with the vendors. We just orchestrate the storage, collection and approval of such things. Next, I helped another engineer launch a platform (due to the bus test), and I sanded down the sharp edges so that it would be an easier platform for our internal users. After that, I designed and started building a replacement to some of the oldest code at Ramp— handling credit card transactions. I also have volunteers for on-call duty— and mentored engineers across the org. Role: Python backend IC

Pawp, Inc · Full-time

• Director, Software Engineering

  Sep 2021 - Jun 2023 · 1 yr 10 mos

  At Pawp, I built systems for the CTO that would start as one sentence. “Our users should be able to book paid calls with a marketplace of pet professionals”. I would then architect, construct and deliver that system in the fastest timeline possible. I built: * referral system— i was asked to build this twice— but i only built it once as i made the side-effect of the referral fully pluggable. * an awesome scheduling system that involved a pythonic way of dealing with booking slots. A range of datetimes, and a booking interval, would create an object of “Slots”. This object functioned as an iterable list in python, so you could just loop over slots without the surface area for making time related mistakes in any business logic. If fully encapsulated datetime math so that it was solved in one place. (It also did more, but that was my favorite). * a prototype card issuing, authorization and transaction platform (serverless). * other small features * i also surgically performed a difficult migration in graphene/graphql tooling without requiring touching existing code. Role: Python backend IC. Was involved with sourcing, recruiting and hiring backend engineers

Curex

• CTO

  Jan 2020 - Aug 2021 · 1 yr 8 mos

  Built up a D2C healthcare product from scratch. Hired managed and led the engineering organization after building the initial GTM v0 launch. Performed all the expected CTO responsibilities around non-engineering technology as well. (But thats less exciting to talk about). Role: Backend (Python), frontend (TypeScript w/VueJS), infra (AWS), devops, IT, people management and leadership.

Capital One

• Director, Software Engineering / Distinguished Engineer ( @ Paribus/WikiBuy/Jewel )

  Oct 2016 - Jan 2020 · 3 yrs 4 mos·New York City Metropolitan Area

  2016-2018: After Paribus was acquired, I had some downtime due to successful delivery of projects pre-acquisition. So I started up the mailbox project— which was supposed to have a newly hired team assigned to it. Before a single candidate was reviewed, I had a fully working prototype, and not long after it was running production workloads in tandem with our previous system. Mailbox was fully serverless and had zero downtime or incidents. I had such confidence in the system that I offered myself to be fully on-call: 24/7/365. I highlighted the “bus test” as the only vulnerability of the project after it went through a full process of security and other review processes. I hired and managed one engineer to remediate the “bus test” weakness— but spared them of on-call duty and remained fully on-call until I transitioned to a new role in the company. The mailbox project saved the company 7-8 figures annually— after all costs including my salary. 2018-2020: I offered to help Capital One with their acquisition of WikiBuy. I had been on the other side of acquisition— and Capital One as a whole was aligned with reducing that friction for further acquisitions… There wound up not being a lot of work to be done for that specific role, so I created other initiatives to help with the ongoing digital transformation as the company. This included creating and conducting an engineering-only onboarding session— so that new hires would be able to report to their managers without any friction of working in a regulated environment with proxies. This included orientation on using everything from GitHub to CI/CD to AWS. The experiment was a success but I left in early 2020 after the migration I had been assigned to ended. I recommended myself as a lay-off because the team was overstaffed. Role: Python Backend IC, Brief people management (due to building sustainable systems that did not require headcount)

Paribus Co.

• Director, Software Engineering

  Jun 2016 - Jan 2020 · 3 yrs 8 mos·New York City Metropolitan Area

  Automating and spreading my money saving addiction. (see: Capital One) During my time before the acquisition I was asked to pick one of three problems the company wanted to solve. They asked me to become an expert in that problem within 6 months, after which I would be able to hire a team. I solved the first two fully with thoughtful architecture and design within two months. After we got acquired— a built a working prototype to “solve” the third problem within a month. The solutions i delivered were simple, elegant and resilient. They had zero downtime- and for the third— were fully multi-region. Role: Python Backend IC. I delivered solutions that did not require headcount or pager rotations. As a result— I offered to be on call 24/7/365.

Blink Health

• Director of Engineering

  Oct 2014 - Mar 2016 · 1 yr 6 mos·New York City Metropolitan Area

  Joined as the first backend engineer. Built up the engineering organization and directly managed the backend team (after hiring a manager for the front-end team). Built and launched multiple products and systems. Role: Python backend IC/Manager, Management Leadership

MakeSchool

• Senior Objective-C Guru, Professor Emeritus

  Jun 2014 - Dec 2017 · 3 yrs 7 mos·Palo Alto, CA

  Took a break from everything else and decided to invest my time in the next generation by teaching them how to code for iOS. One of the best things I have ever done with my life. Updated: Extended the dates as I still take the opportunity to teach here if it fits my schedule. (This was a seasonal or part-time contracting role as an instructor. I tought multiple sessions, sometimes using accrued PTO on other jobs to do so— I really love mentoring and teaching engineers!) Skills: Swift (Programming Language) · Objective-C · iOS · Cocos2d · SpriteKit · AppKit · Teaching

Multiple Companies · Contract

• Contract Software Engineer

  Feb 2013 - Sep 2014 · 1 yr 8 mos

  Freelance IC work. * Frontend (angular) * Backend (python) * Full stack w/mobile (python, javascript, objective-c) Of note: For one project i built a tinder clone for professional networking in a month. Including iOS app and geospatial search. Spent a week refactoring the entire app from express.js/mongo to python+postgresql

4 yrs 6 mos

• Advisor

  Jan 2013 - Jan 2016 · 3 yrs 1 mo

  Close is the best CRM around. Period. If you want an introduction to someone at Close, please let me know. But I have put an end date on here to help arrange my profile.

• Director of Revenue/Growth, Founding Team, Full Stack + Objective-C + SIP Engineer

  Aug 2011 - Jan 2013 · 1 yr 6 mos

  Elastic is the top provider of scalable, on-demand business development services for venture funded technology companies. (YC W11) ========================== Jason is responsible for scaling our sales force and cooking up our secret operational sauces. He is a serial entrepreneur that has developed multiple iPhone applications and most recently co-founded a startup that changed the way Google employees manage their fitness and health. ========================== This is the 4th CRM I have committed code to. This one is by far the best because it isn't a CRM. It's a whole new category of software that will change the way people do sales. Never log another sales action again. If you are a hacker I am trying to hire you (actually a couple) so that I can go back to writing code instead of bothering you with emails and inmails. Role: Backend (Python), Front-end (Backbone.js), Native (macOS w/objective C), Telephony (SIP/asterisk freeswitch), Growth, Revenue, and ran all hiring including salespeople.

FitSquid.com

• Co-Founder & CTO

  Nov 2010 - Dec 2011 · 1 yr 2 mos

  Bringing all of your gym workouts to the cloud. Automatically log every cardio run you do, and compete against your Facebook Friends and the world! (acquired in 2011 by Elastic) Role: Fullstack: Python Backend. IOS and Android apps. Also developed the hardware. We had a term sheet for 500 startups before we decided to join Elastic/Close as part of the founding team.

Viba Networks

• Co-Founder

  Mar 2010 - Nov 2010 · 9 mos

  VibaTV was an amazing idea that we incubated and decided to save for a rainy day. This was and may again be in the future a true lean startup. We launched something that has never been done before. Tried it for a month. And decided it wasn't as cool as we thought it would be, so we put it back on the shelf for a rainy day. Role: Python backend. Also, ran all of the production for our live shopping show (from casting, to location, to lights. editing, and more)

Supercool School

• Principal / (Engineer)

  Feb 2009 - Mar 2010 · 1 yr 2 mos

  Had a great time helping a great friend with a great idea. The world isn't always ready for the truly crazy ideas. The best thing to do some times it realize that early on and move on to the next great thing.

EatMyLunch.com

• Founder & CTO

  Jan 2009 - May 2010 · 1 yr 5 mos

  Making lunch innovative, disruptive, and in the cloud since 2009. Writing code, validating business models, shelving ideas for later in life. Role: Full stack: Python Backend, Javascript frontend (jQuery). Sales + Leadership.

Kappa Sigma - SJSU

• President

  Dec 2005 - Sep 2006 · 10 mos

Trident Leasing Corporation

• CRM Lead Developer / Vendor Finance Manager

  Jun 2004 - Mar 2009 · 4 yrs 10 mos·San Jose, CA

  Other than beating quotas I couldn't help but hack on the CRM software being used in the office by all 25 employees. Automated most manual processes so that we could double our deal flow with the same support staff. Built up a new marketing channel to get deals directly from vendors, and also handled all PPC/SEM and even got us to the top 3 on Google and Yahoo for "Equipment Leasing" with White Hat SEO. Role: Fullstack. Backend (ColdFusion). Frontend (Javascript/jQuery). Sales. Recruiting. Also ran all IT including the phone system and its integration with our custom CRM.