Shane Engelman
@shaneengelman
Senior backend engineer building scalable distributed systems, REST/GraphQL APIs, and high-throughput infrastructure.
What I'm looking for
I’m a senior backend engineer with 10+ years building distributed systems, REST APIs, and high-throughput infrastructure at scale. I’ve often been the first engineering hire, owning critical systems end-to-end—from architecture to production operations.
At a government-facing SaaS startup, I built the full AWS stack from scratch, including billing, IAM, and entitlements. I also designed and maintained multiple production TypeScript and Python services with AWS autoscaling, while mentoring engineers on containerization, version control, and security practices.
In later roles, I delivered developer-facing platforms and infrastructure: I architected an OAuth-integrated Developer Portal on GCP used by 1,000+ partners and 10,000+ developers, and I built developer forums and modularized partner data flows into independently deployable services.
Today, I focus on backend engineering with AI-first workflows, including cryptographic approaches to improve agent reliability. As an independent engineer, I implemented HMAC-signed tool execution receipts in Rust for ZeroClaw to eliminate LLM hallucination of results, and I continue to ship production-grade systems across Rust, Python, and TypeScript.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Independent Software Engineer
Jacana
Oct 2025 - Present (8 months)
Implemented HMAC-signed tool execution receipts in Rust for ZeroClaw, providing cryptographic proof that tool calls actually executed and reducing LLM hallucinated results. Built a Python/Django hackathon server for 500+ engineers and delivered a Rust PGP HSM signing CLI replacing legacy GnuPG scripts with full cross-platform test coverage.
Lead Software Engineer
Felix & Paul Studios
Jul 2023 - Oct 2025 (2 years 3 months)
Optimized Jenkins CI/CD pipeline performance for large binary artifact builds (C++, Python), eliminating bottlenecks to achieve 2x faster delivery cycles. Managed a worldwide fleet serving 300,000+ users.
Lead Engineer, Developer Relations
Magic Leap
Feb 2021 - May 2023 (2 years 3 months)
Architected an OAuth-integrated developer portal on GCP with Docusaurus and PostgreSQL, used by 1,000+ partner companies and 10,000+ developers. Built developer forums for 300+ enterprise partners and helped decouple monolithic partner data flows into modular, independently deployable services.
Senior Immersive Technology Engineer
Moth + Flame
May 2020 - Dec 2020 (7 months)
First engineering hire, built full AWS infrastructure from scratch for a government-facing LMS SaaS, owning billing integration, IAM entitlements, and onboarding flows end-to-end. Designed and maintained 8 production TypeScript/Python services with AWS autoscaling, and mentored 7 junior engineers on containerization, version control, and security practices.
Senior Developer Technology Engineer
Magic Leap
Aug 2017 - May 2020 (2 years 9 months)
Condensed complex data pipelines into repeatable, containerized operations (Python, C, Docker), reducing human error by ~99.9% and supporting $5B+ in venture-backed partner investments. Built and maintained REST APIs and C# code samples that improved partner project spin-up time by 12x, leading cross-functional technical coordination.
Full Stack Engineer
Streamlabs
Mar 2016 - Apr 2017 (1 year 1 month)
Built 7 Node.js chatbot services serving 20M+ users and developed a Python WebSocket proxy supporting 10,000+ concurrent TCP/IP connections. Designed and maintained relational and NoSQL data models for high-throughput real-time event pipelines and monitored production service health with on-call response.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Full Sail University
Master of Science, Game & Interactive Design (UX Focus)
Earned an M.S. in Game & Interactive Design with a UX focus from Full Sail University.
Full Sail University
Bachelor of Science, Digital Arts & Design (UI Focus)
Earned a B.S. in Digital Arts & Design with a UI focus from Full Sail University.
Availability
Location
Authorized to work in
Portfolio
github.com/zeroclaw-labs/zeroclawJob categories
Skills
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