# Jacob B. > Product Engineer @ Discord Location: Brooklyn, New York, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/jacobb1 Hi! I'm Jacob, an indie web and game developer originally from Orlando, Florida. I began my programming journey at the age of 17 and quickly developed a love for crafting bespoke and engaging consumer software. I graduated from the University of Florida in 2021 with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. During my college years, I co-founded Studio Reach, a small web development outsourcing boutique, where I served as CEO and product engineer. As a full-stack developer and designer, I utilized my skills in Figma, React, Firebase, Node.js , and GCP to deliver full-service web solutions to B2B and B2C clients. Shortly after closing Studio Reach I joined The Marriage Pact in May 2021, a Stanford-originated social-dating startup as a founding full-stack engineer. I leveraged my expertise in React, FastAPI, DynamoDB, Postgres, Elixir, and Rust to contribute to the company's early growth. In May 2022, I accepted an offer to become the companies first full-time engineering hire, relocating to New York City. The timing aligned perfectly with The Marriage Pact's successful $5M seed-round investment, led by Bain Capital Ventures among other notable investors. During my time at The Marriage Pact I've been a core full-stack engineer building various experimental consumer apps and web services, most recently the Checkmate app. This app reached impressive heights, peaking at #15 on the Apple App Store's social category with 50k daily active users within just a few months of release. JavaScript, Python, and Elixir are my primary areas of expertise, with a particular love for emerging web technologies, including WebAssembly and WebGPU. If you're looking for a dedicated developer with a passion for pushing boundaries and crafting immersive digital products, let's connect! Front-End: Typescript/Javascript | React/Redux/Next | HTML/CSS | Radix UI/Tailwind Back-End: Node.js (Express/NestJS) | Python (FastAPI, Flask) | Elixir (Phoenix) | Rust (Warp) | PostgreSQL | Neoj4 Testing/Deployment: PyTest | Jest | AWS (RDS, Dynamo, Cognito, ECS, Cloudwatch) | Vercel Developer Tools: Git | Vite | AppSignal | Sentry | Figma | MixPanel ## Work Experience ### Product Engineer @ Discord Jan 2023 – Present | New York, New York, United States I've been building Quests • Part of Discords first advertising event-focused team, expanding from 1 six-engineer team to now 4 • Co-led development of the first Shop-integrated Quest. Launched a full-stack MVP in <4 weeks. Campaign for Amazon Games reached 6M+ users and 150K+ rewards, with 50% reach international. Also viral on Twitter: https://x.com/Purilly/status/1780807216989385126 • Led integration of Discord Orbs (virtual currency) for Quests. Partnered with Payments and Shop teams over 6 months to deliver API/UI overhaul for a 200K-user public beta, with >25M Orbs paid out in first 24hrs • Co-built the first internal content management tools for Quest launches. Led onboarding for non-technical ad ops users via training sessions and documentation. Tool is now our primary launch method, with dozens of successful campaigns • Conducted 10+ interviews for mid and senior-level engineers across the ads org and contributed to hiring calibration discussions. • Accessibility ambassador for the ads department, conducting UI audits and leading accessibility knowledge-sharing among engineers. ### Full Stack Engineer @ The Marriage Pact Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | New York, New York, United States • 1st engineering hire at Stanford-originated social dating startup, raised $5M seed round in Feb 2022 led by Bain Capital Ventures. Currently 5 full-time engineers • Designed and led development of our proprietary real-time matchmaking graph, built on Elixir, Rust, WebGPU and RabbitMQ, capable of matching 1M total users in real-time and syncing >100 updates/sec • Solo built + launched Elixir/Postgres-backed core REST/real-time socket API for the Checkmate App, reaching 50k DAU, #15 in the App Store’s social category, and >400k requests/hr. Includes ~500 unit/integration tests • Solo built + launched propriety social recommendation graph for Checkmate, built on Elixir and Neo4j (with custom-built Elixir driver), currently in production handling 20M unique nodes and 45M unique edges • Built companies custom DevOps CLI in Python to run tests, build Docker artifacts, run migrations, and deploy to new/existing AWS ECS services automatically, or scaffold new services from scratch via Cloudformation • Built + launched the company's first React-based user account portal and Python-based API to securely collect and analyze user submission data for over 200k students across 87 U.S. universities. ### Full Stack Engineer @ The Marriage Pact Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | Gainesville, Florida, United States ### Chief Executive Officer @ Studio Reach Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | Gainesville, Florida Area • Bootstrapped software consultancy, helping entrepreneurs bootstrap mobile and web application-based startups • Built company to $6K monthly revenue within 6 months and $23K annual profit after first year • Built and deployed 5 full-stack React/Node applications to production over a 2 year period, including clients from BioTech, Healthcare, and Real Estate industries. Hosted on GCP • Led development team of 3 engineers and implemented weekly product performance reviews with clients, weekly story prioritization meetings, and weekly feature releases through an automated DevOps pipeline • Launched real-estate agent matchmaking service AreYouHouseReady with 50+ agents subscribed to paid tier ### Full-stack Developer/Designer @ UF Software Engineering Club Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | Gainesville, Florida, United States • Led UI design and UX research efforts for 12-person development team in club-sanctioned app Clubfinity • Contributed to the apps Node.js/MongoDB backend and custom UI kit in the app's React Native frontend • Organized and led bi-weekly app usability studies with 20+ students and 5 club presidents • Designed 30+ unique screens and prototypes, contributing to a 50% increase in development velocity ### Frontend Developer @ startGNV Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 | Gainesville, Florida, United States • Launched new organization React site within 3 months for local Entrepreneurship organization StartGNV. 40+ companies and 60+ job listings included in local company directory at launch • Participated in effort to include newsletter signup form alongside launch of organization’s new Newsletter, contributing to a 38% open-rate and 1.8% click rate after first week (from ~800 contacts) • Led transitioning site to full test coverage and automated deployments ### Brand Designer @ Collective & Co. Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | Gainesville, Florida Area • Helped design visual brand identities for a half dozen different companies in industries ranging from IoT to podcast production to SaaS platforms. • Designed style guide (logo, color palette, typography) for suburban development project San Felasco Tech City • Assisted in facilitating Design Sprint’s for over 15 new companies across 2 accelerator cohorts Designed landing pages for shows in podcast-production startup, increasing new listener acquisition rate ## Education ### Bachelor of Engineering - BE in Computer Science University of Florida Jan 2017 – Jan 2021 ### Full Stack Web Development Certification in Computer Software Engineering freeCodeCamp Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 ### East Ridge High Jan 2013 – Jan 2017 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jacobbleser - Website: https://jacobbleser.dev --- Source: https://flows.cv/jacobb1 JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/jacobb1/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-23