Software Architecture & Engineering

Staff Engineer • 25+ Years of Systems, Platform & AI-Native Development

With degrees in both Computer Science (Washington University in St. Louis) and Cinema-Television (USC), alongside continuing graduate studies in Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University, my career balances deep technical architecture with creative innovation and rapid prototyping.

With over 25 years in software engineering, I design, ship, and operate distributed systems and platform infrastructure at scale. My work spans architecting compliance-grade FinTech platforms and AI-native developer tooling at Ridgeline, building microservices and real-time 3D telemetry visualization for orbital rocket launches at Virgin Orbit, ingesting 700M+ daily market records into AWS at Eagle Automated, and shipping commercial 3D graphics games and multimedia applications.

Professional Leadership & Experience

Staff Engineer • Ridgeline
Reno • 2024 – Present

FinTech platform services, audit trail, search, unified data modeling, and AI-native developer tooling

  • Platform & Architecture: Lead Engineer across backend, frontend, and AWS; author ADRs, drive flagship program designs through the Architecture Advisory Forum, and align technical roadmaps with Product and Design.
  • AI-Native SDLC Pioneer: Author of the engineering team's AI-SDLC guide, automated review harnesses, LLM documentation standards, and custom Claude skills for PR announcements, asset management, and spec discovery.
  • Selected Impact: Architected compliance-grade audit trail; eliminated production metadata publish failure modes org-wide; optimized schema checks by 110× cutting weekly database query time by ~99%.
Stack: Kotlin, Java, Python, TypeScript, Postgres, Kafka, Elasticsearch, Redis, Iceberg, AWS (EKS, Lambda, CDKTF), Claude Code
Lead Software Developer • Virgin Orbit
Long Beach • 2019 – 2023

Data management, microservices, and 3D visualization for rocket and satellite launch

  • Lead architect of configuration management software frameworks; served on the Data Management Governance Board.
  • Built real-time 3D flight & rocket launch visualizations using WebGL and Vue.
  • Delivered scalable microservices and ETL pipelines running in Kubernetes and Docker (Python, NodeJS, Flask, Django).
Stack: Vue, Angular, React, TypeScript, NodeJS, Python, WebGL, Kubernetes, Docker, REST & AMQP
Senior Software Developer • Eagle Automated
San Francisco • 2013 – 2019

High-performance financial sector applications, real-time analytics, and Big Data

  • Ingested 700M+ daily real-time market exchange records into AWS (C++).
  • Engineered custom ETL data pipelines and complex business logic into large SQL databases (Python).
  • Developed web applications for portfolio management, trade simulation, and regulatory compliance.
Stack: C++, Python, PHP, JavaScript, SQL, AWS (EC2, S3, RDS), Slack Bot integrations

Core Technical Stack

AI & Tooling: Claude Code GPT AI-SDLC Agentic Testing Skills & Harnesses
Languages: Kotlin Java Python TypeScript / JS C++ SQL PHP
Cloud & Data: AWS (EKS, Lambda) Kubernetes Kafka Postgres Elasticsearch Iceberg Redis Docker
Web & Frameworks: React Vue Javalin Laravel Node / Express Django / Flask

Education & Background

  • Stanford University
    Artificial Intelligence Professional Program • Center for Global & Online Education
  • University of Southern California
    MFA, Cinema-Television Production
  • Washington University in St. Louis
    BS, Computer Science
  • Ironman • 4x Finisher Improv Comedy & Music Ski Instructor

Software Demos & Projects

Let's Connect

Interested in consulting, architectural guidance, or connecting? Send me a note.

©2026 Matthew Flanzer. All rights reserved. Say Hello!