whoami

Jeff Rade github linkedin

Software Engineer and Leader with over 15 years of experience in development, cloud infrastructure, security and mentorship with various sized companies. I've held many different technical roles as a polyglot developer with extensive knowledge in many different tech stacks.

Pragmatic in nature, I put an emphasis on working solutions over lengthy or unnecessary meetings. Great architecture comes from robust, resilient, reliable and secure systems coupled with modular and easily maintainable code that is built by engineers with autonomy.

Great leaders evoke trust, lead by example and are technically savvy in their space. Lacking these qualities can create unnecessary noise, leave cultural problems unsolved and stifle quality and innovation. Leadership is not directly tied to title or skill level, but rather anyone who treats everyone with respect, continuously learns, teaches others and stays humble.

How well you know a subject can be measured by how well you can teach it. That's why I believe teaching yourself and then teaching others is a great way to gain real knowledge. I prefer, and also advocate for, writing code (or hands-on configuring) over reading books (books are great for reference) to learn a new programming language, networking, infrastructure or security.

Having an academic background in Mathematics, where I also taught, I have gravitated towards teaching, mentorship and cryptography throughout my career. I have built various solutions involving end-to-end encryption, PKI, OAuth and APAKE protocols.

Below is a list of some accomplishments and projects:

  • keypost.io: A developer and CI/CD friendly password manager.
  • Slackcrypt: End-to-end encrypted messaging in Slack.
  • flashpaper-rs: A cryptographic secret sharing site (hosted at flashpaper.dev).
  • Lead development in provisioning AWS dev environments and Kafka consumer/producer app clients for automotive marketplace company.
  • Lead platform improvements in code reusability, middleware performance and technical mentorship for corporate hospitality startup.
  • Improved security posture, expanded platform capabilities and lead engineering for a mobile startup in real estate.
  • Conducted over 300 interviews and proudly leveled-up a few colleagues along the way.