About Me
Hi, I’m Aaron. I’m a Senior Software Engineer at USAA on the Location and Geospatial Intelligence team. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, playing board games and hanging out with my family. In 2014, I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia. I’ve also climbed the 115 4,000+ foot mountains in New England.
Skills
- Geospatial:
- ArcGIS Enterprise, GDAL, Oracle (Spatial), PostGIS, GeoPandas, Shapely
- Systems & Languages:
- Python, TypeScript, SQL, Bash
- Infrastructure
- OpenShift (Kubernetes), Docker, AWS (EC2, Lambda, API Gateway), GitLab CI/CD, Linux
Experience
USAA
Senior Software Engineer
August 2022 - Present
- Platform Leadership & Mentorship: Lead the enterprise geospatial platform team, following organization-wide standards for high-scale system design, availability, observability, and data pipeline compliance. Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, instituting formal design and code reviews to elevate engineering practices. Work closely with business leaders to plan and prioritize features and modernization efforts.
- High-Scale Spatial APIs: Engineered major scalability and performance improvements for geospatial REST APIs deployed on OpenShift (Kubernetes) and backed by Oracle and ArcGIS Server. Optimized the system to reliably process millions of real-time data and geocoding requests daily with sub-second response times.
- Enterprise Data Pipeline: Manage and maintain around 20 spatial data pipelines built with Oracle, Control-M, Python, and ArcGIS. Designed and currently building the next-generation migration to scalable containerized workflows and a Medallion architecture for data storage and processing with Snowflake.
- Resilient Infrastructure Strategy: Designed and maintained a highly resilient, hot disaster recovery (DR) environment for ArcGIS enterprise infrastructure, ensuring uninterrupted availability and delivery of core property, bank, and situational awareness products for multi-user internal platforms.
Esri
Principal Product Engineer
Feb 2022 - July 2022
- Architecture & Product Leadership: Served as a technical team lead for ArcGIS Field Maps, guiding cross-functional web, iOS, and Android engineering teams. Architected core system design for location sharing, geofencing, workflow automation, and high-volume mobile data collection.
- Unified Data Collection Design: Designed and developed the core architecture and technical specification for ArcGIS “smart forms,” establishing a standardized data collection framework widely adopted across independent product lines, including the JavaScript SDK, Map Viewer, and Field Maps.
- Mobile Geofencing Capabilities: Led engineering efforts to bring low-latency, on-device geofencing and real-time proximity alerting frameworks to native iOS and Android applications.
- Application Security Lead: Directed threat modeling and product security assessments for Field Maps, Workforce, and Track Viewer. Investigated and resolved vulnerabilities, ensuring enterprise-grade data security and compliance for global customers managing tracking data.
Senior Product Engineer
Feb 2019 - Feb 2022
- Technical Feature Ownership: Served as technical owner for the ArcGIS Tracker mobile app, translating complex customer requirements into scalable software specifications and location-tracking system designs
- Core Location Sharing Design: Designed the architecture for the location sharing capability deployed globally across ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise cloud infrastructure.
- SDK & Integration Development: Authored the Workforce and Tracker modules of the ArcGIS API for Python, delivering programmatic interfaces for workflow automation and external system integrations. Developed ArcGIS Field Maps application on the Make platform to allow customers to leverage webhooks to automate workflows.
Product Engineer
Jan 2017 - Feb 2019
- Workflow Automation: Developed a suite of open-source Python scripts, developer utilities, and notebooks automating core administrative workflows and data transformations for mobile applications.
- Test Automation Architecture: Designed and implemented an end-to-end test automation framework using Python, Selenium, Appium, Behave, PyTest, Docker, and Jenkins to validate web and native mobile applications.
Product Engineer Intern
May 2016 - July 2016
May 2015 - July 2015
- Application Development: Developed custom spatial web applications and automation scripts utilizing Python, JavaScript, and ArcGIS Server
- Spatial Modeling & Analysis: Performed advanced spatial optimization and structural data modeling using ArcGIS Desktop, Python, and R to support peer-reviewed research on resource deployment and spatial efficiency.
University of Utah
GIS Developer & Teaching Assistant
Jan 2015 - Dec 2016
- Taught Intro to Geo-Programming (Python) and the two corresponding labs.
- Taught Intro to WebGIS labs using HTML, JavaScript, and the ArcGIS API for JavaScript.
- Developed custom web applications and scripts for clients of the DIGIT Lab using Python, JavaScript, HTML, and ArcGIS Server.
- Performed spatial and non spatial data analysis with ArcGIS Desktop, Python, and R.
Rochester Institute of Technology
Teaching Assistant
Sept 2013 - May 2014
- Taught Assembly Language programming and Digital System Design II (VHDL) labs.
Lenovo
Product Engineering Co-op
Mar 2013 - Aug 2013
- Investigated potential hardware and software defects such as drivers, battery life, wireless, and thermal issues.
Gleason Works
Software Engineering Co-op
Mar 2012 - Aug 2012
- Developed CNC gear cutting and grinding software as well as internal tools using C/C++ and C#/.NET.
Education
University of Utah
MS Geography
2015 - 2016
- Researched how drones could be used to deliver emergency medical supplies such as AEDs to patients.
- Published a few journal articles:
Rochester Institute of Technology
BSc Computer Engineering
2009 - 2014
- Studied Computer Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering
- Completed a wide range of projects including:
- an autonomous shopping chart
- a simple Android app
- a program to control audio volume using EEG signals
Personal Projects
- A Python library to solve spatial optimization problems using GeoPandas or the ArcGIS API for Python in conjunction with pulp.