# Owen R. James

> Software Engineer at Google

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/owenrjames

- Senior Software Engineer with experience at Google, leading large-scale, serverless data infrastructure projects.
- Tech Lead for next-gen Dataproc Metastore — re-architected to Cloud Run, cut infra costs 72%, boosted latency 55%, and improved system resilience.
- Contributed to BigLake Metastore and Iceberg REST Catalog: unified metadata layer powering cross-engine analytics on Spark, Flink, and BigQuery.
- Proven track record designing scalable cloud systems, enabling zero-downtime migrations, and mentoring engineering teams.
- Experienced across the stack: Java, Go, C++, TypeScript, Python, Flask, SQL, GCP, AWS, serverless architecture, GKE, and distributed systems.
- Passionate about building reliable, cost-efficient platforms that unlock developer velocity and cross-team interoperability.

## Work Experience
### Software Engineer @ Google
Jan 2022 – Present | Mountain View, California, United States
BigQuery Team
Technical Lead for the architecture and redesign of the next-generation Dataproc Metastore: a fully managed, highly available, multi-regional, auto-healing serverless metastore supporting Apache Hadoop ecosystem workloads.
- Re-architected both control and data planes from GKE to Cloud Run, moving our service to a serverless deployment.
- Reduced infrastructure costs by 72% and improved startup latency by 55% while enhancing scalability and reliability.
- Ensured full feature parity between legacy and serverless systems, adapting 8 years of prior feature work to new, serverless acrchitecture, enabling seamless transitions for customers.
- Designed and executed zero-downtime migrations, with no impact to production workloads.
- Cut inactionable oncall alerts by 88%, improving operational efficiency and team productivity.

BigLake Metastore & Iceberg REST Catalog
Contributed to the development of BigLake Metastore: a unified, serverless metadata platform that connects Cloud Storage and BigQuery data to engines like Apache Spark, Apache Flink, and BigQuery SQL.
- Delivered features enabling cross-engine metadata interoperability via the Apache Iceberg REST catalog.
- Helped establish a single source of truth for Iceberg data, improving consistency and discoverability across compute engines.

### Senior Software Engineer @ Amino Health
Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco, California, United States

### Software Engineer @ Amino Health
Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco, California, United States
- Built and maintained entire full stack features involving frontend (Javascript, Typescript, React), to backend and API layer (Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, Django)
- Owned features from technical design and architecture through scoping and implementation
- Managed teams of up to four engineers as a technical lead and IC on mission critical projects
- Architected services which led to improving user engagement by 26%

### Software Engineer II @ Hivemapper
Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area
- Developed components of web based application, requiring state management (Redux, etc), and implemented a complete overhaul of UX based on customer needs.
- Designed and implemented backend REST API to send and process map data and render as a 3D model
- Developed a component-based frontend framework to automate and reduce new website and feature development time as much as 80%, while ensuring feature consistency.
- Migrated codebase from a predominately Javascript/React web app to a TypeScript/React  web app, hosted on AWS
- Used AWS EC2 instances to implement test deploys with remote access

### Staff Engineer @ Langan Engineering & Environmental Services
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area
- Used VBA and Python to design, analyze, and deploy CE applications adopted company-wide
- Performed technical analysis with civil engineering software for various projects including the $1 billion G.S. Warriors Arena (Chase Center), and $1.6 billion Oceanwide Center
- Updated outdated technology stacks for more efficient analysis/design tools
- Conveyed technical calculations and data to clients to assist in informed design, scheduling, and budgeting


## Education
### Master of Science (M.S.) in Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
Jan 2016 – Jan 2017

### Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) in Engineering
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
Jan 2011 – Jan 2016

### Software Engineering Immersive
General Assembly


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/owenrjames

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Source: https://flows.cv/owenrjames
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/owenrjames/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-03-22