James Sowder Email & Phone Number

Austin, Tx, Us

Austin, Texas Area

At Spectatin, I specialize in building AI-driven tools and business efficiency apps that deliver rapid, tangible results. As the lead and founding AI engineer at a stealth venture studio, I’ve led cross-functional teams, sharing best practices and cutting-edge AI strategies across startups. I’ve also spearheaded the development of multiple AI applications and internal tools to boost productivity and efficiency.Key Contributions: • AI Engineering & Strategy: Architected and deployed AI-powered systems, including automated evaluation tools and generative LLMs. Regularly provided AI strategy that influenced product direction and engineering architecture. • Rapid Prototyping: Consistently delivered MVPs within days, enabling startups to iterate quickly. My scrappy approach using tools like Google Sheets, AppScript, and AppSheet has allowed teams to scale quickly with AI-forward thinking. • Full-Stack Development: Built end-to-end solutions using JavaScript (React, Next.js, Node.js), and implemented analytics systems like PostHog and Amplitude to create a data-driven culture. • Team Leadership & Hiring: Recruited and onboarded engineers, ensuring the AI team’s success while sharing best practices studio-wide. • Entrepreneurial Spirit: I’ve helped startups achieve in weeks what typically takes months, and I’m exploring the possibility of turning this efficiency-focused, AI-powered methodology into my own business.This experience balances my hands-on technical skills with business-savvy strategies, making me well-suited for AI engineering roles or future entrepreneurial ventures.

Austin, Texas Area

JavaScript engineer for the PayPal Summary page, where all logged in PayPal customers land and receive a personalized and performant (<-- my focus) experiencehttps://www.paypal.com/myaccount/summary/- Server-side React, RxJS single page app (SPA)- Highly scaled: summary page processes 150-220 requests per second depending on load (~14 million request per day, ~100 million requests per week)- Highly available/reliable: summary page maintains > 99.999% uptime- Highly optimized: server-side rendered summary page delivers to the client (95%-ile) in < 1s with time-to-interactive (TTI) < 7s on average globally while working towards a goal of TTI < 5s- Highly personalized: every summary page load, from layout to offers to features shown/hidden, is personalized based on many internal data points and business rules- Highly analyzed: every summary page impression or interaction generates a wealth of analytics used for KPI/metric optimization, page optimization, error analysis, risk aversion, and more- Highly experimental: every update is behind a hypothesis and experiment to create the best page based on learning from data- Highly accessible: entire page follows accessibility best practices using ARIA attributes- Highly globalized/localized: page is localized in 200+ countries/regions and supports 25 currencies- Highly tested/testable: CI/CD pipeline includes gating and reporting for linting, building, automated unit tests, automated functional/end to end tests, static code analysis, file integrity analysis, automated security/vulnerability testing, automated manifest creation/promotion/deployment using docker/mesos/terraform- Highly observable: analytics dashboards and data lakes enable observability into what happens with every request/response, every session, or any other way to slice data that enables insight- Highly responsive: page responds to user device type, providing optimized experiences for mobile web, tablet web, and desktop web

Austin, Texas Area

Building software and people the best that I can. - Servant leader to 7-15 full-stack engineers spanning 5 teams in a matrix-style highly Agile engineering department.- Focused on people first, with my proudest accomplishment being twofold: helping engineers advance in their careers and revamping the engineering career path and performance management system. - Hired, from sourcing to offer, many engineers in a short time span during rapid company growth- Created an onboarding program for engineering that acted as a template for the broader company. I'm proud of the feedback I received from an engineer, which was: "the best onboarding I've ever received"- Managed full-stack engineers who worked on a variety of projects and technologies with a focus on JavaScript and .NET. - Seeded and oversaw a cultural shift towards a DevOps mindset, working closely with engineers on improving the build and deploy pipeline.- Worked closely with IT to create process around security guidelines and practices and to clarify who owns what system.- Worked closely with support team to resolve issues and streamline workflows.

Austin, Texas

Changing the way we deliver skills-based education, with a focus on outcomes. Currently achieving 90 NPS with graduates of an intense JavaScript immersion program. Continually improving. I was quickly promoted to lead and manage the Austin instruction team after joining the company. My time is split about 50/50 on managing/engineering.I manage a team of ten where I set direction, create alignment, and enable my amazing team to exceed all expectations placed upon us. We continually create new apps and analytics tools for the company to leverage in a scalable manner. We make decisions based on data and we collect tons of it!I'm also a technical mentor to all Austin students and staff where I'm the lead engineer for teaching/training on all advanced software engineering concepts, whether it's related to code, team/organizational dynamics, or careers.I also teach advanced JavaScript and software engineering concepts including Empathy and Pair Programming, Being a Professional Software Engineer, Complexity Analysis (Big O Notation), Test Driven Development (TDD), Service Oriented Architecture, Docker, Advanced Schema Design, Advanced Architectural Design, Front-end Optimizations, User Experience and Design, Agile, Scrum, and Kanban.I also train instructors and oversee the teaching of the following JavaScript and Software Engineering concepts: JavaScript Foundational Knowledge, Data Modeling and Classes, Data Structures, Inheritance Patterns, Algorithms, jQuery, MVC, Backbone, ES6, API's, React, D3, Servers, Node, Server-Side Techniques, Express, Databases, SQL, Mongo, Authentication, Full-Stack Development, Deployment, Heroku, Digital Ocean, AWS, Build Tools, Angular

Austin, Tx

Mobile first and UX focused developer using Swift for native iOS development and Appcelerator Titanium for prototyping and cross-platform app development. I'm part of a small, entrepreneurial team called Local Labs. We're creating a vendor focused mobile app at XO Group for our wedding vendors. I practice design thinking and rapid prototyping. My goal is to learn about our customers as fast as I can.Day to day, I regularly meet with our customers to interview them and watch them in their place of business to understand their job and to build empathy for the challenges they face and the needs they have. I then rapidly prototype to solve for their needs. To do this, I start with paper prototypes using post-it notes or an iPad mini. I then build low fidelity prototypes and interactions using the Appcelerator Titanium Alloy framework so that I can play with my ideas in my hand to see how the user experience looks and feels. Next, I work with other developers and turn the rough prototype into a minimum viable product (MVP) which I take back to our customers, get feedback, and then we learn and iterate. This enables learning on rapid cycle. Right now I run this cycle weekly, and I have goals of accelerating this learning cycle time throughout my career.

Austin, Tx

Acktie focused on the problem space of connecting the online and offline world, or the internet of things. As a co-founder, my partner and I hypothesized that we could create a more connected community by working with neighborhoods and bringing them together via in a connected app (online) and neighborhood (offline) things you'd interact with (e.g. signaling a specific trash bin is full). We had one neighborhood connected pretty well via the neighborhood app and were working on connecting the offline parts of the neighborhood before ramping down Acktie as other opportunities popped up.As a side effect of those efforts, Acktie also acted as a developer tools company for mobile developers. We enabled mobile developers to quickly and cleanly solve common problems by providing features as easy-to-use modules (e.g. a QR reader module, or an NFC module).

Austin, Texas Area

Developed both the front-end and back-end of eBay Resolution Center. Leading the way in a mobile-first strategy.Go-to innovator, making a difference in the Austin office through mobile app development and evangelism of effective innovation practices.Currently practicing Java, JavaScript with AngularJS, CSS leveraging Bootstrap.js, HTML5, and at times using all sorts of proprietary tools and frameworks to get the job done.

Leader in innovation metrics, patent submissions, and known change agent for innovation execution through development of mobile apps in my own time.Developed automated tests in Java and upheld quality standards for our world class Java based presentation tier rewrite that enables our internal customers to develop applications easier and faster than before, which is validated as PayPal is quickly migrating the entire site to our framework based on proven benefits from early adopters.Created an automated Java test framework, enabling higher quality automated testing, which in turn was adopted by the entire PayPal quality organization.Developed automated tests in Perl, testing that our C++ infrastructure database connection pooling techniques and SSL resumption met quality and performance standards.Developed automated tests in Silk, testing customer-facing enterprise applications.

Developed and tested Dell Support Center 2 (DSC2), a comprehensive automated support tool packaged with all consumer Dell systems - 15 million users and growing. Created and utilized a lifecycle process for all DSC2 content (100+ small development projects).

Developed a complete documentation system using SalesLogix, VB, HTML, SQL, PDF, and Crystal Reports, reducing time spent by employees and customers on tedious paperwork by over 50%. Developed internal applications to assist with housing costs (savings of $200,000/year), locks (savings of 5-10 hours per assignment; 1,000-2,000 assignments per year), QA (automatic license/certification expiration system expedited business-critical JCAHO certification), and nurse profitability projections (allowed CFO to set pay rates instantly, previously calculated by hand).