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Jarrod Connolly

jarrod.connolly@gmail.com  ·  LinkedIn  ·  GitHub

Engineering Leader | Technical Manager | Principal Engineer

Engineering leader with 25+ years delivering large-scale backend and platform systems across gaming, enterprise network infrastructure, real estate, and travel. Turns ambiguous problems into clear priorities, strong execution, and stronger engineering organizations. Seeking Engineering Manager roles with deep technical scope and cross-functional ownership.

Leadership Snapshot

  • 10+ years leading teams across people management, roadmap ownership, and cross-org technical strategy.
  • Scaled Kabam Central Tech from 3 to 10 engineers, with leadership influence across SRE, QA groups.
  • Direct people-management ownership: hiring, performance reviews, 1:1s, promotions planning, compensation input, and bonus distribution.
  • Delivered systems with measurable business outcomes: chargeback platform (~$100K/month savings) and data pipeline latency reduction (~4 hours to <15 minutes).
  • Drove multi-team initiatives across engineering, data, finance, marketing, live operations, and security domains.

Core Strengths

Engineering Management · Technical Strategy · Hiring and Talent Development · Architecture and Platform Design · Roadmap and Delivery Planning · Developer Experience · Service Reliability and Observability · Cross-Functional Execution · Data-Informed Decision Making

Experience

Staff Software Engineer, Fortis Games (2025-Present)

  • Leading an engineering effectiveness program for the Platform Engineering team to improve service design, developer workflows, and release execution.
  • Built alignment across Platform, Infrastructure, and QA teams around shared architecture and productivity priorities.
  • Driving reduction of platform complexity through service and repository consolidation, shared tooling, and better operational standards.
  • Targeting materially less deployment toil and faster service launches and onboarding.

Senior Staff Engineer, Respawn Entertainment (2024-2025)

  • Led technical process and architecture clarity initiatives across teams working on high-demand online systems.
  • Partnered with anti-cheat and security stakeholders to improve system-level integrity and operational readiness.
  • Assessed SDLC gaps, documented priority improvements, and set early implementation direction.

Principal Software Engineer, Phoenix Labs (2022-2024)

  • Architected major backend components for a new game platform and led scale-readiness work.
  • Owned backend database technology selection and world storage architecture design.
  • Developed performance-testing techniques using recorded multi-user gameplay sessions and high-load replay tooling.
  • Mentored distributed engineers and raised engineering quality across design and implementation practices.
  • Platform reached launch-ready state after scale validation for an unreleased title, including completed launch-readiness milestones.

Senior Software Engineer II (Engineering Lead, Central Tech), Kabam (2018-2022)

  • Built and led a 10-engineer central organization spanning junior to principal levels.
  • Led hiring lifecycle with final hiring recommendations for the organization and compensation input.
  • Owned people and performance management: regular 1:1s, reviews, growth plans, promotion planning, and compensation input.
  • Managed roadmap planning and executive reporting for shared engineering capabilities serving a broad internal customer base.
  • Partnered across finance, data, game teams, marketing, and operations to deliver central technical systems.
  • Delivered outcomes including chargeback-loss reduction (~$100K/month) and end-to-end event pipeline latency improvement (~4 hours to <15 minutes) on multi-terabyte-per-day workloads.

Lead Software Engineer, Radware (2013-2018)

  • Led an international team of 8 senior engineers across security and acceleration products.
  • Owned delivery planning and execution for multi-product initiatives with enterprise customers.
  • Shipped SAML, HTTP/2 acceleration, and full-stack product improvements across Node.js and React services.
  • Supported post-acquisition product and technical integration of Strangeloop systems.

Senior Software Developer, Strangeloop Networks (2007-2013)

  • Helped build early product architecture and scale web acceleration technologies.
  • Contributed to patented mobile optimization systems adopted by large-scale customers.
  • Supported technical integration planning during acquisition.

Senior Software Developer, Intrawest (2005-2007)

  • Delivered major components of a Web 2.0 booking platform used across resort operations.
  • Integrated external and internal data systems for advanced travel package workflows.

Software Developer, Tarasoft (2000-2004)

  • Primary developer on core Matrix MLS platform capabilities from early product stages onward.
  • Helped scale a startup product into a major North American industry platform.

Open Source, Speaking, and Technical Leadership

  • Open-source contributor with contributions to the Node.js project, plus contributions to core ecosystem projects.
  • OpenJS World 2022 speaker: Writing a Compiler in Node.js Using Streams.
  • Active technical writer and practitioner doing R&D across compiler, backend, and AI domains.

Selected Technical Projects

  • Complect Compiler: Hand-coded compiler written in Node.js with JavaScript and LLVM backends, with SDL graphics support.
  • High-Performance Tokenizer Research: C++ tokenizer work focused on SIMD/AVX2 acceleration and lock-free high-throughput design.
  • Chunking Technique Research: repeatable evaluation platform for RAG chunking strategies, including comparative testing and novel NLP-based chunking methods, with ongoing publishable research output.

Patents

  • US 9292467 B2: Mobile Resource Accelerator (2016).
  • US 10616356 B2: Optimization of asynchronous pushing of web resources (2020).

Community Leadership

  • Chairperson, Homma Elementary Parent Advisory Council (2023-2025): led school community initiatives, stakeholder alignment, and committee-level decision making for a school of 500+ students.
  • City of Richmond Child Care Development Advisory Committee (2017-2022), progressing from Advisory Member to Vice Chairperson to Chairperson: advised City Council on childcare planning and policy priorities, grant reviews for childcare facilities, funding recommendations, operator selection, and governance-focused evaluation.