About Me
Platform Architect based in Columbus, Ohio — building enterprise systems at scale, exploring the world between sprints.
I'm a Platform Architect with 12+ years of experience designing and delivering cloud-native enterprise systems in the life insurance and financial services industry. At Lincoln Financial Group, I lead the architecture of the next-generation Life Insurance and Annuity platform on AWS — a distributed, event-driven ecosystem of 30+ serverless microservices powering the company's retail product pipeline.
My career spans the full arc from hands-on financial modeling and actuarial calculation engine development to leading cross-functional engineering teams and defining enterprise-scale system architecture. That journey gives me a rare blend of deep insurance domain expertise and modern cloud engineering — serverless architecture, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, microservices design, and cloud migration strategy.
Earlier in my career at IBM, I built applications for the Watson AI cognitive computing platform during its formative years — working within an internationally distributed agile team to ship AngularJS and Node.js applications that trained Watson's conversational and Q&A products.
Before IBM, I spent two summers consulting in Pecs, Hungary through the Simonyi Center, advising startups and small businesses across multiple industries. That experience — navigating cross-cultural business environments and delivering real strategic impact — sparked a lifelong love of international travel.
My engineering roots go back even further, to a full digital transformation I led for a family-owned furniture business — Fitzwater Furniture — where I designed the network architecture, implemented a POS system, and automated end-to-end business operations. It was full-stack thinking before "full-stack" was a job title.
Quick Facts
- Location: Columbus, Ohio
- Role: Platform Architect
- Experience: 12+ years
- Promotions at Lincoln: 4 in <8 years
- Microservices owned: 30+
- Favorite AWS service: Lambda
Career Timeline
IT Consultant
Fitzwater Furniture
Led a full digital transformation for a family-owned furniture business — network architecture, POS system, and end-to-end process automation.
Consultant / Intern
Simonyi Center — Pecs, Hungary
Advised 5 businesses across industries in Pecs, Hungary, delivering business plans, marketing strategies, and feasibility studies. Sparked a lifelong passion for international travel.
Trust & Investments Intern
First United Bank & Trust
Researched equities and municipal bonds, processed securities litigation payments, and assisted with Managed Asset Portfolio realignment.
Graduated Ohio University
BBA, MIS & Finance
Earned a dual-focus Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems and Finance. Active in Delta Sigma Pi and the Foreign Exchange Trading Group.
Software Development Consultant
IBM
Joined IBM as a consultant to a Fortune 500 insurance company, building life insurance policy management software using C#, VB.NET, and SQL Server.
Watson Software Engineer
PromotionIBM
Promoted to Watson Software Engineer — building AngularJS/Node.js applications to train IBM Watson's cognitive AI products, working within an internationally distributed agile team.
Techie Club Volunteer
TECH CORPS
Mentored inner-city Columbus students in programming fundamentals through TECH CORPS, an after-school STEM program. Volunteered through 2017.
Software Engineer / Financial Modeler
Lincoln Financial Group
Joined Lincoln Financial, owning all financial calculation logic for the life insurance product portfolio using VPMS (DXC). Built Python testing frameworks to validate actuarial accuracy.
Earned ALMI Certification
LOMA
Achieved the Associate, Life Management Institute (ALMI) designation — a professional certification in life insurance and financial services.
Software Engineer - NextGen Retail
PromotionLincoln Financial Group
Moved to Lincoln's NextGen Retail initiative, building the foundational serverless integrations between the FAST platform and Lincoln's enterprise systems.
Sr. Software Engineer Technical Lead - NextGen Retail
PromotionLincoln Financial Group
Promoted to Technical Lead within 6 months — owning architecture and development decisions for an agile pod, setting serverless standards adopted across 10 teams.
Platform Architect - NextGen Retail
PromotionLincoln Financial Group
Promoted to Platform Architect — leading architecture across the entire FAST ecosystem. Overseeing 30+ serverless microservices and driving the platform's long-term technical direction.
Community & Volunteering
Techie Club Volunteer & Mentor
TECH CORPS · Columbus, OH
Mentored and taught programming fundamentals to inner-city students in Columbus through TECH CORPS's after-school Techie Club program. The goal was simple: expose young people to technology early, make coding approachable and fun, and plant the seeds for future STEM careers. It was one of the most rewarding things I've done outside of work.
Beyond the Code
When I'm not architecting systems, you'll find me on a ski slope, a golf course, or somewhere in the world I've never been before. I'm an outdoors enthusiast at heart — anything that gets me outside, moving, and seeing new things.
My two summers in Pecs, Hungary sparked a genuine love for international travel and cross-cultural experiences that I've carried ever since. There's something about navigating a place where everything is unfamiliar — the language, the customs, the food — that sharpens how you think and broadens how you see. I try to take that same curiosity into my work.
Skills & Expertise
Cloud & AWS
- Lambda · API Gateway · DynamoDB · SQS/SNS · S3
- Step Functions · CloudWatch · IAM · CloudFormation
- Serverless Architecture · Microservices Design
Programming Languages
- Python
- JavaScript / Node.js
- Java
- C# / VB.NET
- VPMS (DXC)
Architecture & DevOps
- Event-Driven Systems
- Infrastructure as Code (CDK / CloudFormation)
- CI/CD (GitLab, GitHub Actions)
- REST API Design
Testing & Security
- pytest / unittest / moto
- JUnit / Jasmine / Mocha
- AWS IAM Least-Privilege Design
- Secure API & Data Encryption