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Stephen Lindauer
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Denver, CO, United States
Toptal member since July 3, 2017
Bio
Stephen is a senior software engineer with 15+ years of experience. He spent 5+ years at Meta working on video products like Facebook and Instagram Live, including time as a team lead. Since then, his code has gone to space and sent video back down. He joined another startup and led the video platform, launching live streaming, building a mobile app, and improving creator tools. With a background as an Army Intel Analyst, he has served as a former CTO and co-founder of successful startups.
Portfolio
Punchup
Next.js, Node.js, A/B Testing, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, React Native...
Facebook
Flow, JavaScript, Objective-C, React, React Native, iOS, Full-stack, APIs...
Apple
Swift, SwiftUI, Node.js, Objective-C, Front-end, Image Processing, Mobile Apps
Experience
- JavaScript - 12 years
- Objective-C - 10 years
- React - 8 years
- Node.js - 5 years
- TypeScript - 5 years
- React Native - 4 years
- Swift - 2 years
- tvOS - 1 year
Preferred Environment
iOS, MacOS, React Native, JavaScript, Node.js, React, Full-stack, APIs, TypeScript, MongoDB
The most amazing...
...app I've worked on was used multiple hours every day by my state's Attorney General to remember each person he met while campaigning over multiple elections.
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
2023 - PRESENT
Punchup
- Maintained and evolved the video platform using Cloudflare Stream for secure video hosting and playback, managing upload workflows across web and mobile clients.
- Upgraded the video playback experience with a custom Video.js player, enabling greater control, visibility, and extensibility over web-based streaming behavior.
- Launched live streaming support for both real-time and scheduled premieres via Mux (RTMP ingest and signed HLS playback), enabling creators to broadcast seamlessly to web and mobile.
- Integrated automated transcription into the video upload pipeline using Whisper.cpp, and batch-processed 210+ hours of existing content for improved accessibility and discovery.
- Led the development and successful launch of both the creator and consumer mobile apps, managing planning, architecture, and coordination across a multi-developer team.
- Built a mobile-first creator upload tool with automated thumbnail and trailer generation, while driving cross-platform video tooling and back-end workflows to create a scalable, creator-friendly publishing experience.
- Implemented the platform’s first video performance analytics, tracking views, watch time, buffering, and live stream concurrency to inform product decisions.
- Led company-wide technical direction to ensure better engineering practices.
Technologies: Next.js, Node.js, A/B Testing, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, React Native, Turborepo, Vercel, Supabase, Supabase Auth, Figma, Front-end, PostgreSQL, Expo, GitHub Actions, CI/CD Pipelines, Mobile Apps, Dashboards, Architecture
Software Engineer
2017 - PRESENT
- Maintained the RTMP-based mobile streaming library used by Facebook and Instagram Live, later leading development of a next-gen cross-platform streaming client using RUSH over QUIC.
- Led infrastructure work for “Live With” (Co-broadcasting), including its initial deprecation, and later its revival during the COVID-19 pandemic as a priority executive initiative, coordinating with PMs and product teams to ensure delivery at scale.
- Spearheaded a critical protocol migration at the start of COVID-19, launching a new DASH-based live streaming stack for web live that reduced infrastructure load and improved reliability by around 30% during record traffic (peaking at 400,000 daily live streams).
- Ported the mobile streaming client to JavaScript for Web Live, re-packaging and re-segmenting media into RUSH over WebSockets for real-time delivery.
- Managed a small team as technical lead for the Web Live team, mentoring two engineers and driving roadmap delivery for Facebook’s live video broadcasting experience.
- Contributed to Oculus TV’s immersive video player SDK (Java), enabling internal teams to integrate high-quality video playback into their VR applications.
Technologies: Flow, JavaScript, Objective-C, React, React Native, iOS, Full-stack, APIs, System Architecture, TypeScript, A/B Testing, CSS, Front-end, Image Processing, CI/CD Pipelines, Mobile Apps, Architecture
Senior App Developer
2023 - 2025
Apple
- Maintained the iPhone and WatchOS app that is used for the yearly iPhone launches to display sample video during the hands-on area after product launches.
- Maintained numerous internal apps used by Apple Marcom for video production operations to improve productivity of the operations team.
- Worked on a fully remote team in a self-driven capacity where my only interaction with management was 15-minute standups each day. I accomplished my goals and set timelines for projects mostly independently.
Technologies: Swift, SwiftUI, Node.js, Objective-C, Front-end, Image Processing, Mobile Apps
Senior Software Engineer & Fractional CTO
2022 - 2025
Trepa Technologies
- Designed and built a full-featured learning management system (LMS) using Next.js and MongoDB, tailored for IT and cybersecurity training, with lessons, flashcards, and domain-based practice quizzes; used to answer over 1.5 million questions to date.
- Led development of an extensive admin portal for instructors to upload lessons, manage large banks of practice questions, and gain insight into student behavior and performance trends.
- Integrated generative AI tooling to assist in lesson creation and summarization using OpenAI.
- Oversaw a distributed team of developers and designers, managing roadmap execution, code quality, and UX consistency across the web, iOS, and Android (React Native) platforms.
Technologies: Node.js, Next.js, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, MongoDB, React, React Native, Figma, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), OpenAI, A/B Testing, Turborepo, REST APIs, Front-end, GitHub Actions, CI/CD Pipelines, Mobile Apps, Dashboards, Architecture
Full-stack Developer
2012 - 2016
CoMo Coding
- Built a native iOS application used by a state attorney general to track and manage every contact he met during his time in office.
- Created a sync algorithm to keep over five thousand contacts with custom metadata all up to date across multiple devices.
- Constructed a web application in JavaScript and Backbone.js to allow staff to upload contacts and update information for existing contacts.
- Created two native iOS games for iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV using SpriteKit.
Technologies: HTML, JavaScript, PostgreSQL, Python, Swift, Objective-C, iOS, Full-stack, MySQL, APIs, System Architecture, TypeScript, MongoDB, CSS, tvOS, REST APIs, Front-end, CI/CD Pipelines, Mobile Apps, Architecture
iOS Developer
2013 - 2015
Aviation Awarnys
- Created a native iOS application for private airline companies to track flights and manage expenses incurred during trips.
- Interacted with a RESTful API to provide data to the iOS application.
- Uploaded image data from phone to API for storing receipts.
Technologies: Objective-C, iOS, Full-stack, APIs, REST APIs, Front-end, Mobile Apps
Chief Technology Officer
2011 - 2014
Nightlife
- Built a native iOS application providing users with detailed and up-to-date information about events happening in their city.
- Integrated Stripe payments into the venue facing website and automated monthly payments.
- Automated the process of adding new venues and new cities, reducing the amount of time to do so from one week to around 2 hours.
- Created a custom push notification service to allow sending event and venue advertisements to users, and to allow notifications for social media features.
- Implemented a cache using Redis to reduce load time on the servers when fetching event information through the API.
- Built a RESTful API for the iOS and Android applications to interact with the Nightlife data.
Technologies: PostgreSQL, HTML, JavaScript, Objective-C, iOS, Full-stack, MySQL, APIs, System Architecture, CSS, REST APIs, Front-end, Mobile Apps, Architecture
iOS Developer
2012 - 2013
REMAX
- Created a native iOS application to allow users in Lake of the Ozarks, MO to locate homes for sale that fit their needs.
- Built a Node.js service to interact with the MLS database and provide information to our RESTful API.
Technologies: Node.js, Python, Objective-C, APIs, Front-end
iOS Developer
2009 - 2012
CARFAX
- Maintained the iOS app for consumers to purchase CARFAX Reports.
- Maintained and built new features for the website to allow consumers to purchase CARFAX Reports.
- Maintained the code that generated the CARFAX Reports.
Technologies: HTML, Java, iOS, Objective-C
Experience
HomeRemote
React Native app that runs on always-on iPads throughout multiple homes. The HomeRemote app controls smart home IoT devices around the home, presents status about different entities, and automations that run the home.
The app is a completely custom UI that interfaces with a custom build Node.js server that handles connectivity, state, and automation management. The uses a cloud database (mongodb) but is capable of operating completely offline in case of internet outages.
The app is a completely custom UI that interfaces with a custom build Node.js server that handles connectivity, state, and automation management. The uses a cloud database (mongodb) but is capable of operating completely offline in case of internet outages.
Education
2006 - 2011
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
University of Missouri - Columbia - Missouri
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, React, REST APIs, Core Animation
Tools
Apple Push Notifications, Postman, Photoshop CC, NPM, Xcode, Sublime Text, Flow, Figma, Expo
Languages
Python, JavaScript, Objective-C, CSS, HTML, TypeScript, Java, Swift
Frameworks
UIKit, AFNetworking, Django, Core Data, React Native, Next.js, SwiftUI, Express.js
Paradigms
Agile Software Development, Test-driven Development (TDD)
Platforms
iOS, Apple, MacOS, tvOS, Vercel
Storage
MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
Other
Full-stack, APIs, System Architecture, Front-end, Mobile Apps, Architecture, User Interface (UI), A/B Testing, Turborepo, GitHub Actions, CI/CD Pipelines, Dashboards, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), OpenAI, Supabase, Supabase Auth, Image Processing
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