syntropo
Location: Vermont, USA
Remote: Yes (open to travel)
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js/Deno, PostgreSQL, Redis, AWS, React, Elasticsearch, Databricks/Spark, FFmpeg
Résumé/CV: https://en.masher.media/about.html
Email: [email protected]
I’ve spent about half my time in first/founding engineer roles at startups, and half working directly for clients, agencies, and institutions on a wide variety of products. Folks enjoy my enthusiasm for their ideas and my ability to meet them where they are technically, always providing that extra context that builds trust and understanding.
I’m comfortable owning concerns end-to-end, from initial scoping and architectural tradeoffs through deployment of functional prototypes and user testing. I enjoy iterating and scaling systems from there, while building teams to maintain and build upon them.
Expertise in database design, media rendering systems, engagement platforms, high-volume event ingestion, ML pipelines, and getting it all working in AWS. Top priorities are data integrity, security, and privacy.
Lean on me for:
- Technical scoping and planning for a new product or platform before committing resources
- Architectural review and data modeling to see how a system should flow and which tradeoffs matter
- Greenfield builds where you need someone to plan and ship v1 without much hand-holding
- Forward-deployed engineering, working directly with potential customers to help guide the product
Pragmatic about LLMs: effective for exploration, debugging, documentation, and tightly scoped implementation work when paired with strong engineering judgment and rigid testing.
Location: Vermont, USA
Remote: Yes, happy to travel
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js/Deno, PostgreSQL, Redis, AWS, React, Elasticsearch, Databricks/Spark, FFmpeg
Résumé/CV: https://en.masher.media/about.html
Email: [email protected]
I'm a first/founding engineer by background, and lately I've been taking on contract work that draws on that same skill set: helping teams figure out what to build and how, before committing engineering time to it. I'm comfortable owning a problem end-to-end, from initial scoping through architecture and into a working v1, and I communicate clearly about scope, risk, and tradeoffs along the way.
Good fits for contract work:
- Technical scoping and planning for a new product or platform before a team commits resources to it
- Architecture review and systems modeling, mapping out how a system should be structured, where the risk is, and what tradeoffs matter
- Greenfield builds where you need someone to plan and ship v1 without much hand-holding
- Forward-deployed engineering, embedding with your team or your customer's to take a project from spec to delivery
Recent relevant work:
- Built a messaging system delivering millions of emails and push notifications in minutes (retries, deliverability, observability)
- Deployed real-time pipelines and recommendation systems for tens of millions of users
- Launched a browser-based video editing and encoding platform using FFmpeg, Supabase, and AWS serverless
- Scaled event ingestion 100x to power analytics, experimentation, and targeting
I work best when I can talk directly to whoever owns the problem, and I'm glad to start with a short, well-scoped first deliverable if that's an easier way to size up a fit.
Pragmatic about LLMs: effective for exploration, debugging, documentation, and tightly scoped implementation work when paired with strong engineering judgment and rigid testing.
Location: Vermont, USA
Remote: Yes, happy to travel
Willing to relocate: Maybe
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js/Deno, PostgreSQL, Redis, AWS, React, Elasticsearch, Databricks/Spark, FFmpeg
Résumé/CV: <https://en.masher.media/about.html>
Email: [email protected]
I've mostly been a first or founding engineer, owning and evolving end-to-end systems in fast-moving environments. I focus on high-throughput pipelines, messaging platforms, media processing, recommendation engines, and real-time infrastructure.
I also build real-time dashboards and browser-based tooling to observe, debug, and control these distributed systems, using local-first storage and media processing as well as real-time communication workflows. I design systems that remain understandable and resilient under load, retries, and partial failures.
Recent work:
- Built a messaging system delivering millions of emails and push notifications in minutes (retries, deliverability, observability)
- Deployed real-time pipelines and recommendation systems for tens of millions of users
- Launched a browser-based video editing and encoding platform using FFmpeg, Supabase, and AWS serverless
- Scaled event ingestion 100x to power analytics, experimentation, and targeting
I do my best work in small, product-focused teams where engineers stay close to production, communicate early about risks and tradeoffs, and work directly with customers to solve concrete problems.
Currently interested in full-time, part-time, or contract:
- Forward deployed engineering
- Founding or early engineering
- Platform and systems engineering
- Data engineering
Pragmatic about LLMs: effective for exploration, debugging, documentation, and tightly scoped implementation work when paired with strong engineering judgment and rigid testing.
Location: Vermont, USA
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Maybe
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js/Deno, PostgreSQL, Redis, AWS (compute, messaging, storage), FFmpeg
Résumé/CV: <https://en.masher.media/about.html>
Email: [email protected]
I've mostly been a first or founding engineer, owning systems that have to scale early. I focus on high-throughput pipelines, messaging systems, media transcoding, and recommendations—areas where issues show up under load, retries, and edge cases.
I also build real-time dashboards to observe and control these systems, using local-first approaches and browser-based technologies for media processing and realtime communication.
- Messaging systems delivering millions of emails and push notifications in minutes (retries, deliverability, observability)
- Browser-based video editing and encoding platform using FFmpeg, Supabase, and AWS
- Real-time pipelines and recommendation systems for tens of millions of users
- Scaled event ingestion ~100x for analytics and experimentation
I do my best work in small, product-focused teams, owning systems end-to-end, staying close to production, and communicating early around risks and tradeoffs.
- Founding or early engineering roles (full-time, part-time, or contract)
- Backend or infrastructure-heavy work
- Products with real users or a clear path to them
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS (Lambda, ECS, SQS), FFmpeg, Redis, Deno
Résumé/CV: https://masher.media/doug-anarino-resume.pdf
Email: [email protected]
I’m product-focused and have been building web systems for 30+ years, mostly as the first or founding engineer, including 7 years scaling a consumer platform to tens of millions of users. Open to contract or part-time work immediately.
On the backend, I’ve worked at significant scale:
- Built multilingual messaging systems sending millions of emails and push notifications in minutes (deliverability, retries, observability)
- Scaled event ingestion ~100x for analytics, experimentation, and targeting
- Worked on real-time pipelines and ML-based recommendation systems for a global user base
More recently, I’ve been building a SaaS platform around an open source, browser-based video editor and encoding API:
- TypeScript across Node and Deno (Lambda containers, Supabase Edge Functions)
- Distributed media pipelines using FFmpeg and AWS (API Gateway, ECS, SQS)
- Focus on client-side processing, network constraints, and rendering at scale
I do my best work in small teams, owning systems end-to-end from architecture through operating and debugging in production, while partnering closely with founders.
Looking for:
- Founding or early-stage roles (full-time, part-time, or contract)
- Backend / infrastructure-heavy work
- Media, messaging, or high-throughput systems
Not interested in: crypto, fintech, medical, or primarily AI-focused roles.