# Aster Langhi > Leading Engineering & Peopleware | Org Design, Developer Experience, & People Systems for Technical & Cultural Excellence Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/asterlanghi EQ-obsessed autodidact/striver. I guzzle nonfiction and swear by "read the manual". Recently working with SvelteKit, TypeScript, DynamoDB, GraphQL, AWS AppSync, AWS SAM/CloudFormation, AWS S3, Auth.js, and Vercel. Previously at Google, Adobe, and Afterpay. Formerly co-founder and CTO of my own startup for 4 years. 11+ years of iOS experience. In love with SwiftUI+Combine since the first public beta. I taught myself to code at age 8, then skipped college and got hired at Google. Ask me about my grand unifying theory of software development velocity—"The Five Pillars of Engineering Productivity"! I wrote a 45-minute slideshow about this and presented it to the CTO of Afterpay, who loved it and asked me to repeat the talk for a larger panel of execs. ## Work Experience ### Founding Full-Stack Engineer @ Multiple early-stage ventures Jan 2023 – Present | East Palo Alto, California, United States I built a full-stack Web app in 2 months using SvelteKit, TypeScript, DynamoDB, GraphQL, AWS AppSync, AWS SAM/CloudFormation, AWS S3, Auth.js, and Vercel. I mentored 3 junior engineers via hands-on coaching and thoughtful, detailed documentation. Using Google Sheets, I built a project tracking system to generate burndown charts in real time, producing daily visualizations of progress and completion estimates. I met and collaborated with various other early-stage founders to ideate and prototype different business ideas. ### Executive Member @ International LEAP Network Jan 2020 – Present LEAP is a private exclusive network for members of the #CareerLeap Program, consisting of Leaders, Entrepreneurs, and super driven high achievers from around the world, who inspire and drive growth & impact on lives, businesses, and society. ### iOS Architect @ FYTR Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 | East Palo Alto, California, United States Given a Figma file, I built a 40+ screen mobile app from scratch in less than 200 person-hours using SwiftUI. I also built a Swift package called `Networking` that solves the general problem of loading remote data in SwiftUI apps and declaring the UI in terms of the current loading state. ### Lead iOS Architect @ Afterpay Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Greater Seattle Area I led the iOS team at Afterpay as we built a greenfield codebase using SwiftUI. ### Senior iOS Developer @ Adobe Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | Seattle, Washington, United States As a member of the Spark Post team, I shipped user-facing features, overhauled legacy code, built productivity tools for our content creators, and authored a general-purpose framework called `Workflow`, which ports C#-style coroutines to Objective-C and solves the "retry manager" problem (among many, many other classes of problem). I also spearheaded a "free-range" platform stability squad commissioned to discover and battle tech debt across the organization in order to speed up developer velocity. In that role, my mini-team interviewed dozens of Spark contributors, analyzed their knowledge, quantified their recommendations, built a report, designed a remedy program, pitched it to our stakeholders, got approval, and got to work. We tackled issues like parsing and squashing the backlog of 600 build warnings; refactoring 10,000-line view controllers; reconciling cross-platform modal display code with platform-specific Braze popovers; and other tales too grim to tell. At one point, I spiked the reimplementation of the Spark Post app in SwiftUI. I was able to build a feature in *seventeen minutes* that had originally taken some of my teammates two weeks to complete. I left Adobe in excellent standing to pursue SwiftUI greenfield development opportunities. ### Consulting Full-Stack Developer @ GetLatka.com Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Greater Seattle Area Architected and built visually rich, mobile-friendly webpages using HTML, CSS, JS, and React. Integrated with a Node, GraphQL, Docker, and Redis backend. See the results: http://book.nathanlatka.com ### Frontend Developer and Evangelist @ SeeFood (Startup Weekend hackathon) Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Seattle, WA My team ideated, market-tested, fully built, and pitched a full-stack React application in two days. I implemented our UI designs in React and integrated with a Flask JSON API. I also interviewed prospective customers and end-users in the field, evangelized the product to advisors and judges, solicited and implemented feedback, assisted in core ideation, helped the team resolve conflicts constructively, and contributed to the pitch deck. My team placed well at the event and won a prize. At the end of the event, all teammates verbally stated that they felt satisfied and enriched by the process of working together. In addition, while at Startup Weekend, I pitched a fictitious company (as part of a side event) and won the award for "best pitch", which included several free months of membership at Cowork Box in Bellevue. ### Founder and CTO @ Kweerie, Inc. Jan 2014 – Jan 2019 | Seattle, WA Conceived, designed, built, and launched a social Q&A game aimed at disrupting the digital advertising space. Singlehandedly authored a 30,000-line iOS app in native Swift, including layers for UI, networking, data persistence, error handling, animations, push notifications, and top-level program flow. Drove teammates’ product and process quality through continual feedback, delivery reviews, personal coaching, and vision guidance. Normalized a culture of self-growth and constructive candor. Defined, led, and coordinated best practices in software development. Administered Git repositories. Documented code, workflows, and project initiatives. Configured and maintained multiple deployments for development, staging, and production. Published app for external TestFlight usage. Recruited, onboarded, and interviewed users. Pivoted product direction based on customer feedback. Tracked qualitative and quantitative success metrics. Conducted digital ad market research and competitive analysis. Defined, reviewed, and honed target niches of Kweerie’s client- and consumer-facing businesses in a complex, multifaceted sector. Consulted with domain experts in entrepreneurship, advertising, and software development. Authored, implemented, and monitored an event-tracking schema using Amplitude. Recruited, trained, and directed a graphic designer. Contributed substantially to UI/UX design. Architected client-server connectivity. Defined backend APIs and data modeling schema. Recruited, trained, and directed a Django developer. Contributed substantially to Django codebase. Invented a state-of-the-art Swift program architecture that disentangled layers and accelerated development. Published the product in the iOS App Store. Pitched the company to customers and investors. Pivoted according to lessons learned. Kweerie dissolved in March 2019 due to lack of strategic viability. ### iOS Developer @ Vida Health, Inc. Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Mountain View, CA Built and shipped major user-facing features for Vida's iOS client app, both independently and with teammates. Trained and mentored teammates in iOS architecture and ReactiveSwift concepts.
 Planned features and UI/UX with Product and Design teams.
 Created maintainable, lightweight, and flexible program architecture.
 Managed compatibility with a challenging legacy codebase.
 Bridged Swift with Objective-C.
 Co-designed and integrated backend APIs.
 Wrote documentation. ### Software Engineer (iOS) @ Google Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | Mountain View Maintained and improved the Google Search App (GSA) for iOS. Debugged and refactored modules in a 200,000-line codebase under constant revision by dozens of engineers. Participated in daily standups. Collaborated with teammates of multiple disciplines. Independently managed bug tickets. Upheld rigorous code review and SCM policies. Quickly learned internal tools, scripts, and build systems. Utilized Google’s internal mentorship program to gain skills, knowledge, and lasting connections beyond the scope of the role. ### Event Producer & Director, S@G Tournament Series @ Breakout! eSports Jan 2014 – Jan 2014 | Mountain View, CA Led a team in planning, publicizing, & executing a series of video game competition events drawing crowds of 130+. Planned all aspects of event logistics in detail, including security, registration, space allocation, scheduling, resource management, inventory, staffing, budget, pricing, guest relations, and more. Executed adaptively, addressing emergent logistical issues in real-time to keep events running smoothly. Leveraged social media to collect feedback from attendees, and adjusted product strategy accordingly. Developed a new tournament system that reduced operational time complexity by a large margin. Represented the org in online PR, negotiations with venue owners, and networking dialogues with peer orgs in other regions. Later expanded the org into an online community & content provider serving the competitive gaming community. Conducted interviews with candidates, made hiring decisions, and built a team united around a shared vision and culture. Confronted true-to-life workplace problems including difficult conversations, employee stress management, and dispute resolution. Officiated key strategic decisions about future projects, budget allocation, and growth direction, taking into account all available data. ### Engineering/Design Lead @ Cogswell Polytechnical College Game Studio Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | Sunnyvale, CA Led a team of engineers in the development of a Unity-based mobile puzzle game. Applied Scrum methodology to meet schedule demands. Led weekly sprint meetings. Personally wrote game design doc and architected codebase. Designed, implemented, and debugged gameplay solutions in C#. ### Creative Lead Director (Project Zecharabra) @ Cogswell Polytechnical College Game Studio Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 | Sunnyvale, CA Led a team of programmers, artists, and musicians in the development of a tactical RPG for OUYA. Designed all types of game content. Communicated creatively with teammates of multiple disciplines, leading an iterative process of successful art and music asset production. ### iOS Application Developer @ Self Jan 2011 – Jan 2014 | Mountain View, CA Designed and coded a productivity app for iPhone and iPad. Implemented a persistent database using the Core Data API. Designed and implemented a "StateStack" -- an API that caches and restores the states of arbitrary KVC properties. Various projects ongoing. ### Consulting Flash Developer @ Sociometrics Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | Los Altos, CA Rebuilt Flash-based educational materials to incorporate Portuguese and French translations. ### Consulting Webmaster @ Edna's Success Jan 2011 – Jan 2011 | Mountain View, CA Transferred the Edna’s Success website to a new hosting service. Maintained and updated its content. http://www.ednassuccess.com/ ### Consulting Web Programmer @ FitMagnet Jan 2011 – Jan 2011 | Sunnyvale, CA Implemented Google AdSense advertising in the FitMagnet website. http://www.fitmagnet.com/ ### Video Game Developer @ Self Jan 2002 – Jan 2007 | Mountain View, CA Wrote, tested, and debugged a Pong engine for iPad using Objective-C, C++, and OpenGL ES. Architected and programmed Conway’s Game of Life in Java, and again in C++. Designed, coded, tested, debugged, and published a Flash-based platformer game on the Internet. The game is playable here: http://wiicade.com/playGame.aspx?gameID=111&gameName=Bubbleman Designed and developed multiple PC games using game creation software. ## Education ### Game Design in Engineering, and Production University of Silicon Valley ### The Evergreen State College ### Computer Science Foothill College ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/seanlanghi --- Source: https://flows.cv/asterlanghi JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/asterlanghi/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-30