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Resume of Blain Smith

blain.smith@gmail.com
blainsmith.com

I am a software engineer always hungry for new challenges and problems to solve, be it tackling online video to disrupt the cable industry, building backend systems for multiplayer AAA games, pushing packets around the internet at Layer 1, or building a motor for my '90 Mustang. I also enjoy the challenge of powerlifting and strongman to push my body to extraordinary limits.

I love working on low level and distributed systems. I can be dangerous with web design and front end work, but my heart is in pushing packets, performance improvements, profiling, and optimizations with compiled languages.

Skills

Systems Design - Software Architecture - Systems Scalability - Linux Networking - Network Protocols - Embedded Linux - Product Development - Technical Leadership - Mentoring - Developer Experience and Productivity - User Experience and User Interfaces - Performant Caching - Online Video Delivery and Analytics - TV-Connected Devices Requirements - CI/CD Setups - Unit, Integration, and Load Testing - Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform - Technical Documentation

Languages and Tools

Go - eBPF - JavaScript - Node.js - Elixir - gRPC - Protocol Buffers - Swagger - Envoy - Docker - Rust - C - Ruby - Java - Kotlin - PHP - ScyllaDB - Redis - Riak - MongoDB - DynamoDB - PostgreSQL - MySQL - SQL Server - BrightScript - HTML - CSS - React - Vue.js - GitHub - GitLab - AWS - GCP - Heroku - Fly.io

Experience

ngrok: Staff Software Engineer

https://ngrok.com
July 2023 - Present

Online in One Line. ngrok is simplified, API-first ingress-as-a-service trusted by over 5M developers to get their apps online faster and keep security happy. With one line of code, developers get instant ingress to services with authentication, observability, and other critical controls. All without provisioning legacy proxies, load balancers or VPNs. ngrok’s simplicity has made it a de-facto standard tool among developers, and the world’s top brands — including GitHub, Okta, Shopify, and Twilio — recommend it throughout their documentation.

Rocket Science: Staff Engineer

https://rocketscience.gg
September 2022 - July 2023

With decades of industry leadership experience, Rocket Science creates online tools & services for the world's most successful games. We designs solutions to solve a wide array of problems for both Publishers & Studios and have experience working with first and third-party partners in regions around the world.

StackPath: Senior Software Engineer

https://stackpath.com
June 2022 - September 2022

StackPath is a cloud computing and services provider that puts its locations in densely populated markets. We have dozens of locations that each sit well inside their city limits, rather than a handful of zones that actually sit somewhere out of town.

That way your applications, data, and content—in part or in whole—can be closer to end-users and devices, and will have a fast, secure, and seamless experience.

Subspace: Senior Software Engineer

https://subspace.com
December 2021 - May 2022

Subspace is a global network platform that allows real-time applications to route traffic on the fastest paths. All at an IP level, and all at scale, putting developers in complete control.

Backed by top Silicon Valley VCs, Subspace builds deep tech in global networking (Layer0 (DWDM) to Layer7). Run by top former Execs from Riot Games, SpaceX, Google, Facebook, and leading Telecom companies. The biggest multiplayer games in the world use Subspace to create the most competitive and engaging online experience possible.

Wolfjaw Studios: Principal Software Engineer, Partner

https://wolfjawstudios.com
August 2019 - December 2021

Wolfjaw crafts compelling experiences through our expertise in building game services, player engagement tools, and companion services. Wolfjaw also makes it easy to curate your video content and drive viewership by equipping your team with a custom suite of streaming solutions, applications, and analytics tools. We are hired as consultants by some of the most popular video game and entertainment companies in the world.

Kinetic: Senior Software Engineer

http://wearkinetic.com
December 2017 - August 2019

Kinetic is attempting to change the way people think about safety by equipping factory and warehouse workers with AI-enabled kinematic trackers to analyze and eventually predict work-related injuries.

Odd Networks: CTO, Senior Software Engineer

March 2015 - December 2017

Odd Networks was born out of MadGlory to build cross platform video and subscription management platforms for gaming, mobile, and tv connected devices. Our platform supports all major online video providers (OVP), Brightcove, Ooyala, JWPlayer, and Vimeo and our SDKs are used to build apps for Roku, Amazon FireTV, AppleTV/iOS, and AndroidTV/mobile.

MadGlory (now PUBG New York): Senior Software Engineer

https://madglory.com
https://pubg.com
October 2012 - March 2015

Founded in 2012 by a team of engineers whose passion is in game services, MadGlory is a team of gamers, developers and designers who now work on their favorite games. First cutting their teeth at Agora Games, now Warner Brothers Games NY, and Major League Gaming, the team has been building game services for AAA studios and developers for almost 20 years.

Most of the roles below involved augmenting internal developer teams to help them launch their projects for their respective studios.

Other customers I can mention by name, but not project due to NDA restrictions, are Bethesda, Epic Games, Kabam, Super Evil Mega Corp., and BossKey.

Harvard School of Public Health IT Dept: Senior Programmer

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu
August 2005 - October 2012

I spent most of my career as a programmer at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in their IT department with only 1 other programmer. Each graduate school at Harvard has their own IT department with dedicated staff. I was on the IT Web Team in charge of everything web technology related.

During the first homepage redesign, we built a custom CMS to suit the needs of the content publishers in the school and worked closely with the marketing department to accomplish this. I also created the school’s first online course evaluation system that integrated with the registrar’s system. This system not only allowed students to evaluate their courses and professors, but it also allowed those professors to run reports to see aggregated results and read feedback from student comments.

Another large school-wide initiative was the HSPH Forum (https://theforum.sph.harvard.edu) which involved building a live video broadcasting studio and managing those live events through a website we built on WordPress. I became proficient in streaming video over the web during this project since we needed to target as many devices as possible. This initiative generated many viewers because their aim was to be a cornerstone for news and information in the field of public health.

Other smaller tasks I was responsible for was supporting the core departments of the school with any web-related jobs. These jobs put me front and center with tenured professors, high ranking administrators such as Deans and Directors of their departments. Gathering requirements, asking questions, and helping them achieve their project goals was priority #1. I made a good name for myself amongst those people and they grew to trust me which, according to my boss, “was hard to do because of their high expectations and the status they carry within Harvard”.

interlinkONE: Programmer

https://interlinkone.com
June 1998 - August 2002

interlinkONE was my first programming job while I was still in high school. I went to a technical high school which offered an IT program and they offered an internship program that I took advantage of.

During my time there I wrote web reporting software in ASP 3.0 that pulled from SQL Server databases for mutual funds clients. Later I spent time working on their product offering for an integration sales and marketing solution for lead generation, lead tracking, order management and fulfillment. I also worked on a custom build GitHub-like software tracking system so we could manage versions and releases of our product and testing with our internal QA team. We called them SMTs (Software Modification Tickets).

Education

I spent a lot of time in school transferring and attending classes trying to complete my B.S. degree in Computer Science. Due to changing degree requirements, time commitments and responsibilities, I decided to focus on my career, and that decision has paid off. Having the opportunity to be employed by companies/institutions who believed in me, my skills, drive and dedication to succeed, I was able to achieve the goals listed above.

Georgia Tech: M.S. Computer Science (Accepted)

https://omscs.gatech.edu/specialization-computing-systems
August 2022 - Present

SUNY Empire State College: B.S. Computer Science (Graduated)

https://esc.edu
August 2012 - June 2020

Harvard University: B.S. Computer Science

https://harvard.edu
August 2005 - June 2010

Bentley University: B.S. Computer Science

https://www.bentley.edu
August 2003 - June 2005

Worcester Polytechnic Institute: B.S. Computer Science

https://www.wpi.edu
August 2001 - June 2003

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: B.S. Computer Science

https://rpi.edu
August 2000 - June 2001

Hobbies & Interests