// senior software engineer
I build reliable software with AI coding agents, and the automated checks that keep it correct.
Open to conversations about staff roles
Phoenix, AZ · open to remote · US citizen · no sponsorship needed · UTC−7 (Arizona, no daylight saving)
crvouga@gmail.com · www.chrisvouga.dev
Senior Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
Software Engineer
Realistic stand-ins for third-party services, so software can be tested end to end without calling the real thing.
Randomized walks check every emulator against the vendor’s own contract, so a passing test means something.
TypeScript
Bun
Node.js
SQLite
A local-first multiplayer game platform for phones: a live space keeps working offline, then catches up on its own when the connection returns.
The specs, not the code, define the product: a rewrite that passes them is the same app.
TypeScript
React
Postgres
Tailwind
WebSocketsBun+1
The monorepo and self-hosted platform behind this site and my side projects, where declared code is the only way to change infrastructure.
An AI coding agent cannot change production except through a pull request that passes every required check, and a daily drift report proves it.
TypeScriptOpenTofuNixOSGitHub Actions
DockerBun+6Specify first. Verify everything.
A change starts as written acceptance criteria, so a teammate or an AI coding agent works to a contract rather than a guess.
Requirements become checks that run on every change. This site’s résumé fails the build if it spills onto a second page; its share card fails if text is clipped.
5,438 tests across three public repositories.
Nothing merges without passing continuous integration, whoever or whatever wrote it. AI coding agents draft; the pipeline is the gate.
12 CI jobs behind 2 required checks on every pull request.
A daily read-only report compares the live platform with what the repository declares, and no plan can destroy a live database or bucket.
16 health-check groups; 47 resources guarded against deletion.
AGENTS.md — the contract every AI coding agent in my repositories works under
An agent co-authored a change that taught the CI infrastructure step to create the sign-in service’s database schemas before migrating them. (pull request #97) CI rejected it: the test that a schema bootstrap may only create empty schemas failed. (the failing run) The follow-up commit restructured the bootstrap so it could be tested, and added the tests that prove it. (fix commit 63c3757) It merged only once every required check was green.
An agent co-authored change added direct cloud-provider calls to a deploy workflow, which breaks this repository’s rule that only declared infrastructure code may touch the cloud. (pull request #100) The policy test that forbids it already existed, but a path filter skipped the check for that pull request, so it merged. The check on the next, unrelated pull request caught it (pull request #101) and a fix removed the calls. (fix commit acc261f) What changed: the check no longer waits on a path filter; it runs on every pull request, whatever it touches. (the removed condition)
Tools. Day to day: Claude Code and Cursor, the co-authors named in this repository’s commit history. (74 and 78 co-author trailers.) One canonical command set is synced to every harness the repository supports. (6 harnesses: Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, Codex / Agent Skills.)
These figures come from GitHub, computed by a script rather than typed by me. They count what the pipeline checked and stopped, not how much I committed.
Merged pull requests in crvouga/workspace, from its first merged pull request, 2026-09-17 → 2026-10-26 · 33 automated snapshot pull requests excluded · computed 2026-10-26 by this script
25,393contributionsLast 12 months · 2025-10-26 → 2026-10-26
Busiest day 2026-10-15: 1,587 contributions, against a typical active day of 34. 0% of the last twelve months' contributions are in private repositories, which GitHub counts but does not show.
Live data from the GitHub API at build time · 2026-10-26 · verify on GitHub
I'm based in Phoenix, AZ. My work has been in education and health software: university platforms for transfer credit, admissions and coursework, and tools that help people act on their lab results. In both, being wrong is expensive and quiet, which is why I build the checks first.
A degree in mathematics and statistics keeps me honest on the data-heavy parts. Away from the keyboard I play drums in a band.
EducationBachelor of Science in Mathematics & Statistics · Arizona State University · 2015–2020
CSS · HTML · Bootstrap · Material UI · React Query · tRPC · Zod · Supabase · Heroku
Email me.
The address below goes straight to my inbox. There is no contact form and no recruiter screen in between.
crvouga@gmail.com