Lately, I’ve been building data science and developer tools. I’m very curious about organizational systems, structure and process. I prefer to contribute to open source software and open knowledge sharing.
Previously, I’ve worked on an open source Java runtime [], code security analysis tools [
], a vulnerability management system ['Portal'], and interactive tooling for learning about Web Monetization [
].
I like to be involved in every step of the creative process: ideation ↔ design ↔ implementation ↔ documentation ↔ testing ↔ release ↔ support ↔ community. I’m happiest when building with collaborators and directly engaging with who I’m building for.
Sometimes I do speaking engagements, career coaching and freelance work. Otherwise, I’m probably bouldering at a climbing gym 🧗🏻♀️, biking on a pathway 🚴🏻♀️ or learning a new hobby 🥁.
my previous work
I was part of the Virtual Machine subteam of OpenJ9. My main contributions can be found here. I worked on extending JDK functionality, implementing startup performance enhancements (primarily in the Bytecode Verifier), and unifying the CMake build configuration to support both compressed references and large heap in a single package.
I worked on prototyping vulnerability remediation and API security developer tools, language support and bugfixes for the static analysis scanner, and packaging and publishing the Reshift VS Code Extension. I got to play around with the ANTLR parser generator, as well as use and contribute to a Datalog variant for static analysis called Soufflé.
The startup has since shut down, so the publicly remaining artifacts of this work are the NPM listing, Product Hunt page and the GitHub org.
Software Secured Vulnerability Management Portal
I co-architected the Portal full-stack app, led development and deployment, and managed a small development team.
The main features I implemented were automated email notifications for upcoming penetration test tasks, a dashboard which organizes the client's software vulnerabilities, role-based access control and automated communications between the client and our penetration testing team.
Coded, designed, wrote, spoke and illustrated for The Akita Project, a Grant for the Web funded project that teaches Web Monetization concepts through storytelling, easy-to-use tools and community outreach. This project was co-created with Elliot.
Akita Browser Extension |
'A Web Monetization Story' |
Community Outreach |
|---|---|---|
| A browser extension that gives you insight into your engagement with Web Monetization. | An interactive, story-based Web Monetization tutorial for online creators. | community.interledger.org/akita dev.to/esse-dev twitter.com/esse_dev |






