# JT Zemp > Staff Engineer · artisanal duct tape · cloud ↔ cellular ↔ IoT Location: Sunnyvale, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/jtzemp I build the backend systems that turn connectivity into revenue. Billing, partner integrations, device provisioning, usage tracking — the unglamorous stuff that makes IoT and telecom products actually work. Also the real-time infrastructure underneath: low-latency, high-availability, fault-tolerant systems that stay up when everything else is on fire. 20+ years of startups, most recently in the space where cloud meets cellular networks. I've been the one calling carrier execs at 2am to fix outages, reverse-engineering undocumented APIs, and building billing systems from scratch (multiple times). I do the hard stuff so the rest of the team doesn't have to. When I'm not hacking, I'm making: a fireball-shooting volcano for a dinosaur park, a laser cutter from scratch, an autonomous boat that sailed to Fiji. ## Work Experience ### Staff Software Engineer > Cloud platform @ Blues Jan 2022 – Present | Utah, United States I work on the platform side of Blues' IoT cloud (Notehub), focusing on billing systems, carrier integrations, and the infrastructure that turns device connectivity into revenue. Carrier and billing integrations: Built and maintain integrations with cellular carriers for SIM lifecycle management: provisioning, plan management, usage monitoring, and automated renewals for prepaid plans. Recently built the billing pipeline for our Starnote satellite product including usage aggregation, CDR ingestion, and invoice generation. Strategic partnership work: Helped architect a cloud integration for a strategic partner, building a bi-directional MQTT bridge between Notehub and their platform. Limited documentation meant reverse-engineering their firmware and protocol. Worked closely with a firmware engineer who handled the device-side integration. Platform infrastructure: Enterprise usage tracking and billing, API rate limiting rollout, and geolocation services that combine cellular tower and WiFi data via third-party APIs. Also led the 2025 pricing migration that touched every customer. Mentorship and support: No direct reports (small company), but I mentor other engineers, work with sales and customer success to understand and meet customer needs. Often handled top-tier customer support escalations. Tech: Go, PostgreSQL, Redshift, Redis, Stripe, MQTT, various carrier, partner and geolocation APIs ### Staff Engineer / Cellular Tech Lead @ Particle Jan 2015 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area / Utah / Remote Particle builds an IoT platform that thousands of companies use to create connected products. I wore a lot of hats over 7+ years, but my primary focus areas were the real-time cloud infrastructure that devices connect to and the cellular connectivity systems that let them talk over cell networks worldwide. Cloud infrastructure: Worked on the core systems that devices connect to directly. Low-latency, highly resilient, fault tolerant, continuously available. The foundation everything else depends on. Carrier partnerships: Technical point of contact for all of our telecom partnerships. Participated in contract negotiations, handled integrations, ran periodic business reviews, and managed escalations. Once called a carrier exec's cell phone at 2am to escalate a regional outage. It worked. Billing systems: Built several generations of billing infrastructure: event-based pricing, seat licensing, and SIM usage models with prepaid subscriptions and overage billing. If it involved turning connectivity into revenue, I probably built it. Data and tooling: Created the data pipelines for BI, troubleshooting, and cell coverage analysis. Built an internal tool to help sales and support navigate the combinatorial mess of geography + carrier + SIM + modem + RAT + band + SKU + plan for global deployments. Hardware test infrastructure: Designed remote test rigs for field monitoring (Raspberry Pi controlling several devices). For a European market launch, I built suitcase-portable rigs that collected and analyzed connectivity data from a dozen devices simultaneously across multiple SKUs while driving across the continent. Community and startup life: Early-stage startup energy meant I also ran workshops, worked expo floors, and built interactive exhibits for trade shows. It was a blast. ### Senior Full-stack Engineer @ Particle Jan 2015 – Jan 2019 At Particle "full stack" has a very different meaning than at most companies. We go all the way from HTML -> cloud apps -> IoT protocols for talking to microcontrollers -> the MCU itself -> hardware. Most of the time, I was working on cloud apps and hardware-in-the-loop testing infrastructure for device<->cloud interactions and monitoring. ### Senior Engineer, Analytics & Data @ 33Across Inc. Jan 2012 – Jan 2015 | Sunnyvale, California, United States Worked on the Tynt.com analytics platform, helping content publishers understand how their content gets shared across the web. Large-scale data processing with Hadoop and Kafka, plus the full stack from client-side JavaScript to Node.js and Rails backends. ### Founder @ Slide Rule Labs Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | Utah ### Business Integration Project Manager @ Surgeworks Jan 2010 – Jan 2012 We're a global organization of talented designers, architects and engineers. We thrive on exceeding expectations and enjoy delivering quality mobile, web and e-commerce experiences that delight customers and make our clients extremely happy. I'm a 'in the trenches' leader who works closely with stakeholders to define the project, scope and deliverables. I push for standards-based, intuitive solutions that delight our clients' customers. Once we have an initial starting point I work with development teams to iteratively produce exceptional results. We produce a functional working revision every week. Let us prove our value to you. ### CTO / Co-founder @ Thrive Information Solutions Jan 2005 – Jan 2012 Thrive Information Solutions is a IT managed services provider to SMB along the Wasatch Front. I can't tell you how often someone says to me, "Wow, I didn't know you could do that!" It's a testament to the power that technology has in our everyday business and the speed that it evolves. At ThriveIS, I help our clients--typically small to medium-sized business--overcome their business obstacles. From getting the most value out of their VoIP PBX, to integrating their website into their accounting & backoffice platforms, I help businesses thrive. ### Project Manager @ Money Desktop Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 MoneyDesktop.com helps America get out of debt by providing cutting-edge tools to manage personal finances and chart the course to being financially free. I wear a lot of hats here, but the most absorbing is managing vendor relationships, API implementation and a JRuby on Rails bridge to the Yodlee account aggregation service. I left in early 2010 with much of the technical staff when Money Desktop stopped making payroll. They've since found some financial backing and are developing some amazing things. ### Senior Software Engineer @ Lead Media Partners Jan 2009 – Jan 2009 Lead Media Partners does some wicked-cool stuff with optimizing lead flow and conversion in the higher education vertical. I was involved in outside-in-based software development using Cucumber (http://cukes.info) and Ruby on Rails to build a reporting and business intelligence interface for a real-time decision system. ### CTO @ Podango Jan 2007 – Jan 2008 Podango is a platform to help new-media publishers to be heard and get paid. We created a robust hosting infrastructure for video and audio podcasts as well as connected show hosts to sponsorship opportunities. At Podango, I provided technology vision and leadership to an awesome team of developers. We migrated from an aging, monolithic application to a modular and scalable system. The migration saved money, and increased stability and capacity. We leveraged cloud computing technologies on Amazon Web Services such as EC2, S3, SQS and EBS to manage costs and allow us to grow incrementally. The company was shuttered in December 2008. I helped afterwards with negotiations with potential buyers and helped with technology transfers. ### Techology Solutions Provider @ FinanciallyFit Jan 2004 – Jan 2005 FinanciallyFit helps create lasting financial freedom for people across America through individual & unbiased financial coaching & mentoring. My personal responsibilities included: Software development (Web & scripting-based) New media design & development (Web design & programming, DVD authoring, streaming video, etc.) Network, Desktop, Server and Exchange maintenance in a Windows 2003 network Network Security (Firewalls/IDS/NOC) ### Internet technology solutions provider @ Phone Directories Company Jan 1998 – Jan 2001 Phone Directories Company publishes telephone directories across North America. At Phone Directories Company, I wore many hats. I did quite a bit of web design and web programming with PHP and MySQL. I developed a departmental CRM system using FileMaker. I helped them win ADP's Publisher of the Year award two years in a row with products I created (an online phone directory and a CD-ROM-based directory product). My last year there I was responsible for the DMZ and Cisco PIX firewall as well as co-developing a desktop-based time clock application using RealBasic and Java with a PostgreSQL backend. ## Education ### BA in Mass Communication / Visual Communication & Middle Eastern Studies / Hebrew language University of Utah ### University of Utah ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jtzemp --- Source: https://flows.cv/jtzemp JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/jtzemp/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-12