Jonathan D. Sousa

As Director of Engineering for a small, scrappy company, I literally do it all. I manage our engineers; plan, direct, and review their work; offer guidance when necessary; and keep backend, front end, iOS, and Android on track and in sync across both Poply — a beautiful reinvention of online invitations — and Birthday Alarm, two profitable products with loyal user bases. Here are just a few of my recent accomplishments:

• Migrated bulk email list generation from MySQL to Athena, reducing a 2-day process to 15 seconds
• Built a custom ad attribution system to overcome the limitations of SKAdNetwork
• Conducted financial analyses to support decision-making and produce forward-looking projections
• Led the introduction of AI systems into our products and internal workflows
• Rebuilt legacy PowerMTA mail servers on a modern AWS Auto Scaling Group using KumoMTA

I led Poply from initial concept to more than 200,000 members and growing, owning the system end to end while continuing to evolve BirthdayAlarm’s platform and infrastructure. My scope has included core architecture, API design, security, anti-harassment systems, performance optimization, containerization, CI/CD pipelines, monetization strategy, analytics, and reporting. I have worked across every layer of the stack: building the web front end, serving as primary developer on the iOS app, designing and adjusting backend services, modernizing email delivery infrastructure, and shaping the data systems that support product and business decision-making.

On the business side, I manage vendor and contractor relationships, oversee legal and licensing compliance, plan and control expenses, and evaluate tools and partnerships to ensure strong ROI. I work hand-in-hand with the Managing Director to align product, engineering, personnel, and financial strategy — respecting our employees and customers at every step while keeping a close eye on the bottom line.

The sole Front End Engineer among 25 industry leaders selected by Michael and Xochi Birch — the founders of Bebo — to join their private startup incubator. The group conceived, built, trialed, and launched disruptive technology products, spinning successful concepts into standalone companies.

• Rebuilt the front end of the 12-year-old Birthday Alarm platform to support mobile and desktop without disrupting 55 million long-time users. Mobile usage increased significantly and membership decline reversed.
• Implemented HTML5 video across a wide range of mobile devices, in some cases rendering through Canvas. Product presented to the press at the 2014 Launch Festival.
• Re-architected the team’s JavaScript approach using a custom implementation of RequireJS and Backbone, integrated with Fabric deployment scripts. Reduced 12 HTTP requests to 1.
• Built a showcase website for the founders’ flagship project, The Battery.
• Worked extensively with responsive design, custom icon fonts, SVG, event tracking, progressive enhancement, Python/Django templates, embedded mobile webviews, A/B testing, and compartmentalized front-end experimentation frameworks.

Managed all aspects of a successful technology consulting business delivering high-quality websites for private-sector, nonprofit, and academic clients.

• Led end-to-end delivery for dozens of clients, including server configuration, database architecture, backend engineering, front end development, custom CMS modules, and multilingual implementations.
• Focused on designing practical, creative, and cost-effective solutions tailored to each client’s needs, resulting in repeat engagements and strong referral growth.
• Services included:
  • Website architecture and standards-based development
  • Advanced Drupal and WordPress engineering
  • Database design and implementation
  • Data mining, analysis, and reporting

I was recruited to take the LibQUAL+ project from a rough pilot to a global program to measure library service quality. The core offering was a rigorously researched web-based survey administered to library users worldwide.

• During my tenure, more than 500,000 respondents completed the survey in six languages.
• Designed and built administration and reporting tools that transformed a research initiative into a scalable, turnkey solution for libraries.
• Developed using object-oriented ColdFusion; implemented statistical processing with MS SQL Server (stored procedures and structured queries), SPSS, and Crystal Reports; integrated CSS, XML, and web services.
• On several occasions I was a featured speaker at major library conferences.