# Paul Russo > Building Cursor Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/paulrusso I'm a Staff Software Engineer who is good at: - Paying attention to the little things (like pixels and milliseconds), while still seeing the big picture. - Refining hazy ideas into production-ready, high-quality user experiences. - Working with teams to plan and build solutions to complex problems. ## Work Experience ### Software Engineer, Client Infrastructure @ Cursor Jan 2026 – Present ### Staff Software Engineer, Frontend Infrastructure @ Slack Jan 2023 – Jan 2025 - Rebuilt Slack's Service Worker, improving the reliability of offline support and cutting install time in half. - Used tracing and a custom data pipeline to identify assets that go unused by most users; used that data to decrease the initial size of the Slack client by more than 60%. - Enabled the Slack client to report errors that occur while it is offline. - Built an internal tool for designers and other FEs to audit, preview, and optimize the performance and size of Lottie animations. - Established standards, created custom lint rules, implemented and maintained performance alerts and guardrails, and communicated changes to our 200+ person frontend engineering org. - Made switching between Slack channels ~25% faster. - Made the Quick Switcher (cmd+k) open up twice as fast. ### Staff Engineer @ Postman Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 | Denver, Colorado, United States - Joined via Postman's acquisition of Akita. - Planned and implemented integration of Akita's technology into the Postman product. ### Founding Frontend Engineer @ Akita Software Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | Denver, Colorado, United States - Led frontend engineering at a seed-stage API Observability company. - Rebuilt the Akita web application to a higher, production-ready level of quality and usability - Worked with CEO, Head of Product, and other engineers to define, design, and ship multiple foundational features - Iteratively optimized user onboarding using a data-driven approach - Prototyped and shipped a ChatGPT-powered feature that answers users’ questions about their APIs, while communicating the AI's risks and limitations to users. ### Senior Software Engineer, Frontend @ Slack Jan 2019 – Jan 2022 | Denver, Colorado - Productionized and successfully released Workflow Builder, a React web application, on a tight timeline. - Collaborated with backend engineers and SREs to adapt client for increasing scale. - Became lead frontend engineer for Workflow Builder; mentored other engineers and guided development. - Maintained high code quality and reliability of Workflow Builder client, while shipping features that are used millions of times every day. - Contributed to prototyping of the next-generation Slack Platform. - Worked as part of Frontend Infrastructure team to help keep Slack's frontend codebase performant and high-quality at scale. ### Software Engineer, Frontend @ Slack Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | Denver, Colorado - Started at Slack as one of the first two frontend engineers working on Slack's new Workflow Builder product. - Immediately contributed to early UX explorations and architectural decisions for Workflow Builder, as well as foundational pieces of Slack's React component system. - Prototyped and productionized high-visibility features to support Platform functionality inside the Slack client. ### Software Engineer @ Artifact Uprising® Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Denver, CO - Built a new React web app for editing custom photo goods. - Developed and iterated on a richly-featured JSON-based templating format for that editor. - Created an internal React-based tool for editing templates, used by employees to launch and improve dozens of products. - Architected and built an AWS Lambda-based, API Gateway-fronted backend for delivering those templates to the editor. - Worked on Java and Go backend services that handled PDF generation, image manipulation, project management, and order fulfillment. - Managed Docker-based AWS infrastructure. ### Software Developer @ Josh.ai Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Denver, CO - Built front-end using React and Redux. - Worked with numerous Internet-of-Things APIs. - Managed Heroku and AWS infrastructure. - Maintained and improved a Node-based cloud architecture. - Wrote tests for React and Node code using Jest and Mocha/Chai. - Developed an Amazon Alexa Skill and a Google Assistant Action. - Interacted directly with customers to provide support. ### Interactive Development Intern @ Crispin Porter + Bogusky Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | Boulder, CO - Built responsive sites for brands including Domino's and Pearl Izumi. - Created prototypes for client pitches. - Completed projects within tight deadlines. - Coordinated with a QA team to ensure projects looked and functioned properly across a variety of browsers, platforms, and devices. - Maintained build systems (Gulp and Grunt) and wrote project documentation. - Worked with various social APIs, including Facebook and Twitter. - Built upon feedback from designers and creative directors. ### Web Development Intern @ Land & Sea Co. Jan 2014 – Jan 2014 | Denver, CO - Collaborated as the sole developer with the strategic director and the art director of a two-person creative agency startup. - Built a completely custom, responsive WordPress site for Denver-based non-profit Mile High Connects. ### Engineering Intern @ Mocavo.com Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 | Boulder, CO ### Engineering Intern @ Mocavo.com Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 | Boulder, CO - Worked in a large, rapidly changing codebase. - Fixed bugs, created scheduled job scripts, made improvements in accordance with our roadmap, and created a new section of the site for a prominent video feature. ## Education ### Computer Science University of Denver ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/paulprusso - Portfolio: https://paulrusso.org --- Source: https://flows.cv/paulrusso JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/paulrusso/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-11