# Nathan Smith > Software Engineer at Benchling Location: Oakland, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/nathansmith2 I am a software engineer with over 15 years experience with networked services. I love building new things, making things work better, and fixing what is broken. Specialties, knowledge, and talents: Golang, Python, Docker, Kubernetes, Java, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Linux, data design and data modeling, software architecture and software design, REST/RPC service design, scalability, statistical sampling, shell scripting, native mobile apps, social media apps. ## Work Experience ### Software Engineer @ Benchling Jan 2021 – Present ### Chief Technology Officer @ HER Social App Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area - Lead engineering team - Individual contributor and systems architect - Collaborated on product direction and roadmap - Managed devops, CI/CD, incident management - Hiring manager for new engineering team members ### Senior Software Engineer @ HER Social App Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area ### VP of Technology, Hearst Digital Innovation Group (DIG) @ Hearst Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 Leading a team of engineers in an initiative to revolutionize Hearst's digital news products. Responsible for providing direction and architectural recommendations to Hearst Newspapers. My team's mandate is to ideate, design, and develop new user-facing products for Hearst's newspaper division. ### Director of Technology, Hearst Digital Innovation Group (DIG) @ Hearst Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 Led engineering for a team of innovators at Hearst consisting of nine engineers and one designer. Architected and built multiple digital media services, including mobile apps, app service layers, user-registration, content feed systems, and several third-party API integrations. Provided key pieces of infrastructure to Hearst's large-scale CMS redevelopment initiative. Worked with multiple divisions and teams across Hearst. Kept the Hearst CTO up-to-date on the state of digital media development. ### VP of Engineering/Head Architect @ BranchOut Jan 2010 – Jan 2014 Led engineering at BranchOut, a professional networking startup that grew to more than 30M users and raised $49 million from Accel, Redpoint, Norwest, Floodgate, Mayfield, and others. Designed and built our flagship product, core services, and developed integrations with numerous third party APIs, such as Facebook Graph API. Designed and built numerous systems to scale well against very high user acquisition (4+ new users/second), high daily use (400K+ DAU), and extreme "whale" use cases. Systems include connection graphs, people you may know, Facebook-style activity feed, Twitter-style follow system. Lead technical hiring at BranchOut, hiring the core engineering and operations teams. Participated in all stages of product development and company strategy. ### Director of Engineering @ SuperFan Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 Lead the engineering team that built various properties, such as SuperFan.com, MyRockstar.com, and Cardvark (Facebook game). Designed and implemented the technology stack to support all SuperFan properties and ancillary services. Created a platform for the development of whitelabel Facebook applications to support agency contracts with NBC, MTV, and others. ### Software Engineer @ Monster Worldwide, Tickle Inc. Jan 2006 – Jan 2008 Senior software engineer at Tickle, Inc. Lead engineer for Tickle property ringo.com. Implemented new products and features across several verticals. Worked extensively with customer care to develop content filtering and TOS monitoring tools. ### Developer/IT Consultant @ Benefit Insurance Services Jan 2003 – Jan 2006 Took over as primary developer of BIS's proprietary CRM application. Added user-requested interfaces and features, fixed bugs, managed the database, and designed custom reporting tools. ### IT Consultant @ Benefit Insurance Services Jan 2003 – Jan 2006 Orchestrated a major overhaul of BIS's customer management system, including integrating with industry standard third-party tools. Redesigned and implemented the company web site. ### Software Developer @ University of California, Davis Jan 2004 – Jan 2006 Developed in-house accounting dept. web reporting application. Technologies included ColdFusion, Javascript/AJAX/DHTML, Oracle. ## Education ### Bachelors of Science and Engineering in Computer Scients and Engineering University of California, Davis ### Davis Senior High ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanes - Portfolio: http://www.branchout.com - Portfolio: http://blog.neocortical.net --- Source: https://flows.cv/nathansmith2 JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/nathansmith2/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-11