Paul Stella

Staff Software Engineer

Location: Kalamazoo, MI

Email: thepaulstella@gmail.com

Summary

Staff Software Engineer with 12+ years of experience across distributed systems, cross-platform desktop applications, real-time media, and cloud infrastructure. Current work spans Go backend services, Electron and Vue applications, browser media and audio APIs, AWS infrastructure, and billing and tax systems, with ownership extending from design and implementation through release and production diagnostics.

Skills

Languages: Go, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, SQL, Bash, C#, Scala

Frontend & Desktop: Electron, Vue 3, React, Node.js, Vite, WebCodecs, Web Audio

Backend & Data: REST APIs, gRPC, Protobuf, WebSockets, WebRTC, Rails, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, BigQuery, Elasticsearch

Media & ML: FFmpeg, EBU R128 loudness normalization, ONNX Runtime, PyTorch

Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, GCP, Terraform, Docker, GitHub Actions, CircleCI

Platforms & Integrations: Stripe, Avalara, HubSpot, Datadog, Algolia

Experience

Staff Software Engineer

BoxCast
Cleveland, OH (Remote)
Apr 2024 - Present

  • Own core areas of BoxCast RemoteMix, a cross-platform Electron, TypeScript, and Vue desktop application, including authentication, application lifecycle, telemetry, diagnostics, automatic updates, and release infrastructure
  • Designed a unified macOS and Windows update layer and coordinated forced-update workflows across desktop, backend service, and web applications
  • Built self-service subscription workflows spanning five services, integrating Stripe Checkout, ACH payments, trials, webhook-driven dunning and subscription lifecycle automation, HubSpot, API routing, and least-privilege authorization
  • Implemented EBU R128 loudness normalization across the broadcast pipeline, spanning an ONNX and gRPC analysis prototype, Go and FFmpeg processing, runtime configuration through Redis, and dashboard controls, with runtime toggling that avoids audible transitions
  • Built client-side diagnostics for WebCodecs preview playback covering bitrate, jitter, dropped frames, freezes, long tasks, and decoder behavior, then used that telemetry to identify and fix an unbounded decoder reconfiguration loop
  • Migrated tax calculation from a direct AvaTax integration to Stripe Automatic Tax backed by Avalara, designing feature-flagged routing, duplicate-tax safeguards, structured observability, catalog synchronization tooling, and finance-facing operational workflows
  • Modernized engineering infrastructure across multiple repositories through signed macOS and Windows release automation, GitHub Actions, AWS delivery pipelines, shared Go packages, runtime and dependency upgrades, and removal of legacy systems

Application Developer

Freelance
Remote
Feb 2021 - Present

  • Implemented OCR scanning for a cross-platform React Native mobile application
  • Consulted on two cross-platform mobile applications for Whirlpool Corporation
  • Built search, filtering, and file upload features for React web applications, including an Algolia-backed menu application using .NET Core and SQL Server

Senior Software Engineer

Lumenalta (Health & Nutrition Client)
New York, NY (Remote)
Dec 2023 - Feb 2024

  • Built REST APIs in Go with Calendly and Zapier integrations
  • Emulated Firebase and Elasticsearch in Docker containers so local development could run without external dependencies
  • Refined, tested, and deployed large-dataset calculations applying nutritional scoring to food datasets

Senior Software Engineer

Lumenalta (Ad Tech Client)
New York, NY (Remote)
Nov 2020 - Dec 2023

  • Refactored and extended ETL pipelines in Go, Apache Airflow, and BigQuery, improving throughput by 80%
  • Migrated existing infrastructure to Terraform and Terragrunt and defined new environments as code
  • Added gRPC and Protobuf interfaces between microservices to improve real-time connectivity
  • Built event-driven Pub/Sub workflows and GitHub Actions pipelines for testing and deploying containerized services

Software Engineer

SmarterServices
Grand Rapids, MI (Hybrid)
Apr 2019 - Nov 2020

  • Built a video transcoding pipeline on AWS Elastic Beanstalk using EC2, FFmpeg, Node.js, SQS, and Docker
  • Built a Google Chrome extension for automated proctoring using TensorFlow
  • Designed and built a check-in kiosk for regional DMV offices with JavaScript, React, and HTML5
  • Built CI/CD automation for testing and deploying microservices with GitHub Actions

Programmer

JohnsonRauhoff
Benton Harbor, MI (Hybrid)
Mar 2017 - Apr 2019

  • Built iOS and Android applications in Xamarin for field service technicians, providing equipment diagnostics and documentation
  • Built a user management platform in Scala and React with subscription plans through Stripe
  • Defined AWS infrastructure with CloudFormation, implemented SNS push notifications and Cognito authentication and sync, and maintained CI/CD across Bitbucket Pipelines and Jenkins

Associate Software Engineer

Better World Books
Mishawaka, IN
Sept 2016 - Feb 2017

  • Built a time-tracking web application and APIs in ASP.NET that streamlined warehouse workflow by up to 25%
  • Migrated a monolithic Python web application to ASP.NET MVC for warehouse shipping management
  • Added Algolia search to an e-commerce site, reducing search load times by up to 75%

Software Administrator

Better World Books
Mishawaka, IN
Feb 2014 - Sept 2016

  • Queried MS SQL Server and MySQL data warehouses and resolved XML and CSV inventory transfer issues supporting product fulfillment