About
Software engineer and technical advisor with experience scaling systems and growing startups. Previously at Google, Quip (acquired by Salesforce), and various advisory roles. I specialize in:
- System Architecture & Reliability Engineering
- Large Language Models (LLM) Systems
- Technical Due Diligence
- Early-stage Startup Advising
- DevOps & Cloud Infrastructure
Professional Experience
Independent Advisor & Investor
2016 - Present
Advising ~20 startups and small businesses on technical strategy, architecture, and growth.
Volunteer Editor, Wikipedia
2017 - 2021
In lieu of full-time employment, I spent a substantial amount of time as a volunteer Wikipedia editor (~45,000 edits).
Software Engineer, Quip (Acquired by Salesforce)
2013 - 2015
Early employee focusing on DevOps and sales engineering. Managed AWS infrastructure and built customer-facing features for the collaborative document platform.
Site Reliability Engineer, Google
2007 - 2013
Managed large-scale infrastructure and system reliability during Google's rapid growth phase.
App Engine SRE (2010 - 2013)
Reliability engineering for Google's platform-as-a-service product.
Logs Infrastructure SRE (2007 - 2009)
Operated and scaled Google's distributed logging pipeline.
Education
Iowa State University — B.S. Mathematics, minor in Computer Science
Technical Skills
- Languages: Python (proficient); recent work in React/JavaScript, Swift, Kotlin (Trakaido); experience in PHP, Java, C++, SQL; familiarity with Golang, Rust, Lua
- DevOps & Infrastructure: AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines
- Domains: System Reliability, Cloud Architecture, Technical Strategy, LLM Integration
Recent Projects
- June 2025 - January 2026 - "Trakaido" - Lithuanian language-learning app. Web (React), iOS (Swift), and Android (Kotlin) platforms. Word-generation code at github.com:powera/greenland; web application at trakaido.com.
- April 2025 - additional benchmarking/performance testing of LLMs. Results available here.
- December 2024/January 2025 - "Atacama" - blog engine written with the assistance of LLMs. Server code available at github.com:powera/atacama.
- October 2024/November 2024 - (text generation) LLM benchmarking and task performance. Source code and benchmark results available by request.
Beyond Engineering
- Chinese (Mandarin) — conversational proficiency
- Running — approx. 2h10m half-marathon
- Chess — approx. 1600 ELO
- Game Design and Playtesting
- Theatrical production (non-professional)
Contact
Based in Ankeny, Iowa. Available for technical roles and investment opportunities.
Email: alex@pow3.com