~/brandonzacharie

$ whoami

Brandon Zacharie

Software engineer. I build for the www — services, clients, and all the wiring in between.

Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Medellín

githublinkedininstagramstudio.chatemail

$ cat about.md

about

My parents bought our first computer from AST Research — an AST Advantage running Windows 3.1. Soon after, I was surfing the web with Netscape Navigator and a USRobotics 14.4K modem over CompuServe. I knew then what I wanted to do as a grown-up.

Two decades later I'm still at it — building products for the web and for mobile. I've led frontend, backend, and platform teams at startups and large companies, with a recurring weakness for quietly-elegant APIs and developer tooling.

1990s desktop computer

// The machine that started it all.

stats

hometown
Los Angeles, California
based_in
Las Vegas, Nevada
born
April 5, 1984
mbti
INTJ

$ ls projects/

projects

I keep open-source libraries on GitHub.

github.com/BrandonZacharie

open source

  • Chess.py

    A simple chess engine in Python. CLI interface, full test suite, automated CI.

    • #Python
    • #chess
    • #CLI
  • node-redis-server

    A Redis server manager for Node.js — spawn, control, and tear down redis-server processes. Built for end-to-end test rigs and local dev.

    • #Node.js
    • #Redis
    • #testing
  • node-mongod

    A MongoDB server manager for Node.js. Same idea as node-redis-server but for mongod — no Docker, no fuss.

    • #Node.js
    • #MongoDB
    • #testing

selected work

  1. Gusto

    2024 - 2025

    // Sr. Software Engineer

    Engineering on Gusto's payroll, benefits, and HR platform serving hundreds of thousands of small businesses.

    • #Ruby
    • #JavaScript
    • #TypeScript
    • #SQL
    • #Ruby on Rails
    • #PostgreSQL
    • #ChatGPT

  2. Thumbtack

    2022 - 2023

    // Sr. Software Engineer

    Designed and developed public APIs and internal tools for deploying integrations. Integrated dozens of external partners.

    • #Go
    • #Python
    • #JavaScript
    • #REST
    • #gRPC
    • #OAuth
    • #PostgreSQL

  3. Better (Better.com)

    2020 - 2022

    // Sr. Software Engineer

    Built communications platform services (email, SMS) used by internal teams to push millions of messages, and a custom telephony system serving thousands of agents simultaneously — including its end-to-end test rig. Architected platform APIs for event streaming (Kafka) and resource access (REST).

    • #Python
    • #SQL
    • #TypeScript
    • #Twilio
    • #Okta
    • #PostgreSQL
    • #Kafka
    • #ActiveMQ
    • #Redis
    • #Electron

  4. TRASH (VSCO)

    2019 - 2020

    // Sr. Software Engineer

    Lead developer for web services and APIs supporting the iOS app. Owned the data access layer — doubled its performance. Trash was acquired by VSCO.

    • #JavaScript
    • #Swift
    • #SQL
    • #GraphQL
    • #Node.js
    • #PostgreSQL

  5. Decorator

    2017 - 2019

    // CTO

    Managed engineering for a team of three. Cut DBMS costs ~60%. Lead developer of iOS apps and web services. Ported the iOS apps from Objective-C to Swift. Grew to ~50k active users in six months without ad spend.

    • #Swift
    • #Objective-C
    • #Java
    • #T-SQL
    • #JavaScript
    • #Node.js
    • #WildFly
    • #Redis
    • #RabbitMQ
    • #SQL Server

$ cd ~/travels && ls

travels

Snapshots from the road. Cities, deserts, coastlines, and the long stretches of asphalt in between. The full feed lives on Instagram.

@BrandonZacharie
  • travel_01.jpg
  • travel_02.jpg
  • travel_03.jpg
  • travel_04.jpg
  • travel_05.jpg
  • travel_06.jpg

// photos coming soon — placeholders for now

$ open photography

photography

Studio work and portraits. I shoot under the name studio.chat — a small studio with a soft spot for honest light and quiet composition.

studio.chat
  • Studio portrait
    FE 50mm f/1.8f/1.8 · 1/2500s · ISO 800
  • Basket of soft pretzels
    FE 50mm f/1.2 GMf/8 · 1/50s · ISO 100
  • frame_03.jpg
  • frame_04.jpg
  • frame_05.jpg
  • frame_06.jpg

// more photos coming soon

$ echo $EMAIL

contact

Best way to reach me is email. I read everything; I reply to most.