Comment by syntropo

Most systems work fine until they don't. I build the ones that still behave when things fail.

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: hn@masher.media

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