My Resume

Joss

Steward

Location Seattle, WA
Email joss@42hz.net

Staff Software Engineer


SUMMARY

Skilled software engineer with experience in developing desktop, cloud and embedded applications. Experienced with many platforms, and always interested in learning new technologies and languages. Consistently recognized for high quality work. Large breadth of knowledge. Very fast learner and efficient self-directed worker.

TECHNICAL HIGHLIGHTS

Proficient:

  • Elixir, Erlang, Golang, EXLA, NX, SQL

  • Applied LLMs, Multimedia processing and analysis

  • System Architecture, Microservices, Agile & Test-Driven Development

  • CloudFormation, Terraform, CDK

  • Cloud Application Components including DynamoDB, SQS, Lambda, Fargate, EC2, RDS, and S3

Professional Experience with:

  • Java, Python, Lua, Golang, C, C++

  • Pytorch, Agentic System Design, Clustered System Design and Administration

  • HTML, CSS, JavaScript

  • FreeBSD and Linux Server Administration

  • PostgreSQL Administration, ElasticSearch, Kibana, Grafana

EXPERIENCE

2022 - 2026

Wurl

Remote

Staff Software Engineer

Lead engineer on many projects, including novel research on video metadata and analysis. (Still editing this)

2021 - 2022

Tanium

Remote

Senior Software Engineer

Member of small squad responsible for maintenance and bug-fixing on Tanium Plugin Modules. Responsibilities include verifying bug reports, writing automated tests to reproduce issues, improving the quality of older codebases, and developing patches. I also mentored new team members and worked to improve the reliability and ergonomics of our internal tooling.

2019 - 2021

Amazon.com Web Services

Seattle, WA

Software Development Engineer II

Member of AWS Corporate Collaboration team, responsible for providing email services for Amazon including AWS and subsidiaries. Maintained, improved, and developed new services responsible for anti-spam and security, mail transfer and delivery, mailing list functionality, mailing list moderation tooling, and monitoring infrastructure. The globally distributed mail system handles an increasing load currently at more than 1,500 deliveries per second.

  • Led design and implementation of Attachment Control System for outbound emails, designed to enable the sender to check if attachments have been viewed and allow the user to revoke access from unintended recipients.

  • Designed and built a next-generation email address governance system that leveragedDynamoDB to improve replication speed, exibility, and availability of the email address and list management system. Added custom LDAP shim to interface with postfix and replace a system of flat files.

  • Contributed to the design and implementation of a replacement email list moderation system, vastly improving the experience provided by the existing moderation tooling and adding new features, including the automation of some policy-driven moderation decisions.

  • Designed and demonstrated prototype next-generation mail transit infrastructure, replacing traditional postfix systems with a cloud-native solution leveraging S3, DynamoDB, and Lambda to improve delivery reliability, throughput, and configurability.

2017 - 2019

Saft America - Space and Defense

Cockeysville, MD

Embedded Software Engineer

Embedded Software Engineer working on control systems for Advanced Lithium-Ion Batteries in the Saft America Space & Defense Division. Responsible for developing and supporting safety-critical, bare metal, hard-real-time embedded monitoring and control programs for high voltage energy storage systems using C and C++, testing products and changes to validate speci cations and troubleshooting failures in returned products.

  • Received "Star" award for work done to test and deliver an important product to the customer on time in December 2017.

  • Designed and implemented a custom UDP-based monitoring protocol optimized for low power consumption and low overhead on resource-constrained microcontrollers.

  • Developed chassis-mounted HMI using embedded Linux and QT.

  • Developed and implemented control algorithm for enhanced high voltage bus activation after completing analysis and simulations, increasing safety and fault tolerance of prototype kilovolt energy storage system with peak discharge power exceeding several megawatts.

  • Updated existing and created new desktop applications used for debugging, testing, and monitoring products.

  • Improved and expanded automated hardware testing platform.

2016 - 2017

First Data Corporation

Hagerstown, MD

Software Engineer; Intern

Responsible for developing and supporting line-of-business applications using Java and SQL. Rewrote existing Excel, VBA, and RPC-based work ow in Java.

2012 - 2015

Volvo Group Trucks

Hagerstown, MD

Software Engineer; Intern

Worked during summers for over 4 years as part of a team developing software to support research and engineering being performed in the Product Development Laboratory.

  • Developed C# data analysis and reduction program for emissions compliance testing, eliminating 2 weeks of manual analysis work and allowing emissions compliance teams to remain in the field uninterrupted.

  • Sole developer responsible for the creation of an ASP.Net website and associated windows data gathering service used to monitor and analyze utilization of heavy-duty diesel engine testing equipment over time.

2012 - 2013

Collaboratory

Grantham, PA

Programmer - Volunteer

Developed embedded firmware in C and Assembly to run on custom hardware. The project goal was the development of a remote monitoring system to detect and warn of impending hardware failures in hand-operated water pumps in rural Africa, reporting pump seal health over SMS.

EDUCATION

2013 - 2017

Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering

Shippensburg University

Involved in Video Game Development club and Competitive Programming Team. Worked with fellow students on many small projects including the construction of a small robotic car for competition in the Freescale Cup, the creation of a student-run server used for penetration-testing practice, and a distributed prime-number finder written in Haskell.

CERTIFICATIONS, COURSEWORK & AWARDS

2018

Secure C/C++ Coding Course

Carnegie Mellon University

2014

Miklausen-Likar Science Research Award

Shippensburg University

2014

Guru Award - CSII

Shippensburg University

2012

National Honor Society Member

Grace Academy

2009

CompTIA Network+ Certification

CompTIA

2008

Technician Class Amateur Radio License

FCC