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Joe Rifkin

@joerifkin

Principal Software Engineer at COVU, where I led an AI-powered insurance platform that cut agents’ policy creation time by 35%.

United States

Message

At COVU, I led the front end of an AI-assisted insurance policy platform that cut agents’ policy creation and update time by 35%. I partnered with product and design, and designed backend services and REST APIs alongside the React, TypeScript, and Next.js front end.

At Builder.ai / Engineer.ai, I built and led a 13-person engineering team, directed React.js-to-Next.js and Ruby-to-Node.js modernization, and chaired the Architecture Review Board. That work cut engineering working time by 25% and rework by 45%; I also led payment and checkout experiences for the Korean Air app.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Senior Software Developer and Lead

COVU

Sep 2025 - May 2026 (8 months)

Led the front end of an AI-assisted policy management platform for insurance agents, cutting policy creation time by 35%. Designed backend services and REST APIs in Node.js with PostgreSQL on AWS, and React, TypeScript, and Next.js frontends.

React TypeScript Next.js NodeJS PostgreSQL AWS Tanstack Query REST APIs OAuth Jest Vitest Feature Flags A B Testing GitHub Actions Claude Code Cursor GitHub Co Pilot

Software Architect

Builder.ai

Oct 2024 - May 2025 (7 months)

Reduced engineering working time by 25% by leading the Architecture Review Board, running design reviews and explaining technical tradeoffs to product, design, and engineering partners across all departments.

Architecture Review Boards Technical Strategy Design Reviews Cross Functional Collaboration

Associate Software Architect

Builder.ai

Oct 2023 - Oct 2024 (1 year)

Reduced rework by 45% by setting technical direction and proactively addressing systemic gaps across two org units.

Technical Direction System Design Cross team Collaboration

Principal Software Developer and Lead

Builder.ai

Jul 2020 - Oct 2023 (3 years 3 months)

Built a team from the ground up, hiring and leading 13 fullstack engineers across frontend, backend, and DevOps. Directed the multi-month front-end modernization from React.js to Next.js and back-end migration from Ruby to Node.js.

React TypeScript NodeJS Ruby MongoDB Next.js Monorepo Redux WebSockets Jest React Testing Library Sentry CI CD Docker Kubernetes

Senior Software Engineer

Builder.ai

Oct 2019 - Jul 2020 (9 months)

Saved 45% of QA time with automated visual testing (Puppeteer) and integrated Sentry observability.

Puppeteer Sentry Testing Automation Observability

Software Lead & Architect

Korean Air

Oct 2017 - Oct 2019 (2 years)

Led a small team on the consumer-facing Korean Air app used by millions of users, owning payment, checkout, account management, and transaction history experiences. Integrated REST APIs and AWS.

iOS Swift Objective C Webkit REST APIs AWS CI CD