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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
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
Project History
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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