FlowCV Logo
Richard ColeSoftware Engineer
Summary

I'm the creator of Pennant, an open-source computational notebook where I reduced the real time collaboration latency from 40ms to 5ms. Optimized CRDT object size by 60% via custom data structure. Chronically entrepreneurial with startup experience developing medical manufacturing facilities and bootstrapping a custom jeans company.

Experience

Mozilla Firefox

Open Source Contributor
2024 – present
  • •Refactored node serialization and deserialization helper methods in the BiDirectional WebDriver module
  • •Removed obsolete topics within observer notification publisher
  • •Bug fixes and patches for the Firefox Front End team using C++ and JavaScript
  • •Mentored and onboarded new contributors, providing guidance and support to integrate their contributions to the project and foster their growth within the open-source community

    • Pennant is a real-time collaborative computational notebook with a remote code execution engine.

  • •Developed frontend integration between client-side providers (Yjs) and WebSocket servers (Hocuspocus)
  • •Reduced CRDT object size by 60% per notebook by implementing a custom nested data structure
  • •Reduced client state load time from 40ms to 5ms and initial state synchronization bandwidth requirements ~80% by implementing 'stale-while-revalidate' in-browser caching
  • •Increased developer productivity 150% with wrapper module API to abstract notebook interactions with underlying CRDT state in the React application
  • •Refactored text editor binding tooling to reduce number of client application WebSocket connections from linear to constant scale
  • •Implemented an asynchronous code execution engine design that optimizes request handling by using background workers, Redis, and a RabbitMQ message broker. This allows the engine to execute languages which require function hoisting or variable declaration, such as Javascript
  • •Improved execution engine security by layering sandboxing, Docker configuration hardening, and employing the principle of least privilege in order to allow prevent disruption from malicious user code
  • •Deployed a functionally partitioned cloud infrastructure to improve reliability and independent service scaling
  • •Automated worker and host resource management via Docker API, control groups, and background workers
  • •Worked within a team of remote engineers, helping organize and task out work via OKRs and milestones
  • •Authored comprehensive whitepaper - https://pennant-notebook.github.io/

    • Outdoor Research

    Automation Developer
    2019 – 2021
  • •Standardized C/C++/PLC programming deployment pipeline for all North American production facilities
  • •Stood up a NIOSH Class II PPE medical mask factory to produce 9,000 N95 respirators per day
  • •Rapid prototyping and development of eleven proprietary mechatronic units and production work stations

    • Navasota Co

    Founder
    2013 – 2019
  • •Programmed Ruby and PHP Shopify application for custom jeans dashboard
  • •Made-to-measure and small batch jeans manufacturing
  • •Crowdfunded 160% of goal on Kickstarter, raising $29,000 (as Paleo Denim)
  • •Special projects with SXSW, The Gap, Fort Lonesome, Levis PRIDE and Bulleit Bourbon
    • Skills
    Front End

    TypeScript, JavaScript, React/Redux, HTML/CSS, Next.js

    Backend

    Node.js, Express, Ruby, Go, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, RESTful APIs, Fly.IO

    Tooling

    Git/GitHub, Docker, Linux, Bash, OpenTelemetry, Grafana, DigitalOcean, Heroku, AWS EC2

    Education

    Syracuse University

    B.S. in Television, Radio and Film