Shae Smith
Engineering Leader & Automation Specialist
Building enterprise-scale applications and leading engineering teams for 17 years. Specializing in AI-powered platforms, automation tools, and cloud-based products.
Engineering Leader and Automation Specialist with 17 years' experience eliminating operational overhead through AI-driven solutions. I don't just build software—I identify manual processes, architect intelligent automation, and deliver measurable efficiency gains.
Proven Impact:
- Reduced 40-hour monthly workflows to zero manual effort (IAP Automation)
- Built AI-powered Q&A system eliminating 80% of manual candidate screening (SmartFolio)
- Daily user of production AI tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) driving 30%+ productivity gains
My expertise spans the full automation lifecycle: identifying high-ROI opportunities, architecting scalable solutions (Node.js, React, Python, LLM APIs), and measuring business impact. I've delivered automation across Finance, Operations, and Product teams—bridging technical execution with operational strategy.
Tech Stack: Node.js, React, Python, PostgreSQL, AWS, OpenAI API, RAG systems, browser automation (Puppeteer), API integrations, vector embeddings (pgvector)
Cross-Functional Impact: I work effectively with non-technical stakeholders to translate operational pain points into automated solutions. Whether building MVPs, scaling SaaS products, or deploying agentic AI systems, I measure success in hours saved and manual processes eliminated.
Open to opportunities in AI/automation engineering leadership, operational efficiency roles, and technical strategy positions where intelligent automation drives measurable business outcomes.
Education
Bachelor of Arts
Computer Science
2004 - 2008
Smith College
What Colleagues Say
Shae is the kind of player on your team that always show up for the game ready to win. She is extremely reliable, proactive, and detail oriented. While at MSLO, Shae was key in solving critical issues facing many time sensitive initiatives. With her flawless executions and efficient solutions, I would highly recommend Shae to any organization looking to take their products to the next level.
Blair Arora
Product & Privacy Compliance Leader at Meta
I had the opportunity to work with Shae Smith when he joined GoTo Foods as a contractor in a Technical Program Manager role. From day one, Shae showed an impressive ability to dive into our complex systems, quickly understand them, and translate that knowledge into clear, high-quality documentation and data flow charts. He worked closely with our principal engineers and architects to ensure everything was aligned with the intended design and business goals. His attention to detail, technical understanding, and ability to communicate across teams made a real impact in just a few months. Shae's a strong asset to any team tackling complex technical projects, and I'd gladly work with him again.
Leonardo Fontes
Global Technology Leader at Universal Destinations & Experiences
At MSLO, Shae was instrumental in the development of several new templates, advertising integrations, and core to overhauling the site registration experience. She is a problem solver with a creative mind and embraces challenges with enthusiasm and passion. She has great potential and I hope to work with her again in the future.
Kristie Wauthier
Product Executive at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
Professional Experience
Epic Games
Aug 2025 - Present
3 months
Remote
Creative Operations Engineer
Contract role via Insight Global focused on creative operations and workflow automation for one of the world's leading game development companies. • Utilize Claude Code (Anthropic AI) as AI pair programmer for all project development • Practice spec-driven development with AI assistance for planning and execution • Leverage AI-powered code generation to accelerate delivery of creative operations tools • Use GitHub Copilot with Claude Sonnet 4.5 daily for enhanced development workflow • Build workflow automation solutions using AI-assisted development practices
GoTo Foods
Jan 2025 - May 2025
4 months
Remote
Technical Product Manager
Contract role via Insight Global managing platform team operations across 7 national restaurant brands. • Owned and managed the platform team's JIRA backlog across 7 national brands • Maintained API and platform documentation in Confluence • Implemented new API versioning strategy with Istio routing, enabling continuous deployment without traffic disruption • Drove automation for menu content import/export between POS and Contentful CMS
IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group)
Jan 2024 - Jul 2024
6 months
Remote
Technical Lead
Contract role via TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) leading GraphQL API development and technical initiatives. • Led development of a GraphQL API layer, improving performance by 20% • Achieved 100% on-time delivery for all projects led • Established automated health checks and error-handling, reducing downtime by 10% • Collaborated cross-functionally to ensure seamless feature deployment
Yomi
Jan 2024 - May 2025
1 year 4 months
Remote
Technical Product Manager
Independent contractor role leading product development for a healthcare practice management platform. • Spearheaded development of a healthcare practice management platform • Delivered features including wearable integrations, admin tools, patient dashboards, and SSO Authentication • Translated Figma designs into JIRA tickets and introduced Kanban, improving delivery speed and communication • Leveraged GitHub Copilot with Claude Sonnet 4.5 for rapid prototyping and AI-assisted documentation • Integrated AI tools into development workflow to accelerate feature delivery
Climb Credit
Jan 2023 - May 2023
4 months
Remote
Lead Engineer
Led engineering efforts on fintech product features focused on improving loan repayment metrics. • Defined technical requirements to align product with business goals • Led Agile sprint planning and ensured timely delivery of high-quality features • Iterated on product features to improve loan repayment metrics
Lantern
Jun 2019 - Dec 2022
3 years 6 months
Greater New York City Area
Technical Lead
Built the original lantern.co platform and supported its growth and maintenance. Created and planned product roadmaps. Created and managed the production of a react design system. Managed the entire technology budget line. Direct people management of 3 engineers, fully remote, from different regions in the world. Project managed the release of product features on tight timelines. Oversaw, planned, and executed a migration from PHP to node and from Heroku to AWS.
Teachers Pay Teachers
Jul 2018 - May 2019
10 months
Greater New York City Area
Software Engineer
Member of a team of full-stack engineers focused on building and supporting the search features on the Teachers Pay Teachers platform. Supported and built features built in React and Elixir. Engineered cross-platform software and exported system performance data.
DoSomething.org
2 roles
Oct 2014 - Jul 2018
3 years 9 months
Greater New York City Area
Senior Software Engineer
Oct 2015 - Jul 2018
Promoted to Senior Software Engineer. Technical Lead for a team of 3 developers building and maintaining core web services that support the technical architecture of the organization. • Led and contributed to building a service for collecting, reviewing, and serving user-generated content from other services in our system • Led and contributed to maintaining our core user identity service • Directly managed Fall, Spring, and summer engineering interns • Helped plan new projects. Managed project scopes, timelines, and requirements • Helped institute standard practices around cross-team collaboration and communication • Responsible for maintaining documentation across all projects and documenting team decisions
Software Engineer
Oct 2014 - Sep 2015
Full stack development with a specialty in front-end work of DoSomething.org (Drupal 7). Promoted to Senior Software Engineer in October 2015.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
Dec 2013 - Oct 2014
10 months
New York, NY
Frontend Developer
Worked as a frontend developer on an agile team building and maintaining new features on marthastewart.com using Drupal 6 & 7. • Created successful websites that met requirements for objectives such as load speed and design • Improved and designed new layouts to achieve usability and performance objectives • Maintained strong education in the latest technologies, software, and hardware products for use in various projects
GLAAD
2 roles
Nov 2010 - Dec 2013
3 years 1 month
New York, NY
Senior Manager of Online Production
May 2012 - Dec 2013
Promoted to Senior Manager. Managed glaad.org (Drupal 7) including Views, modules, content types, permissions, PHP templates, and CSS. Developed marketing emails, produced video projects, and managed social media.
Online Production Coordinator
Nov 2010 - Apr 2012
Developed marketing emails, managed glaad.org website, designed and coded pages, produced video projects, and managed social media. Helped launch new website. Promoted to Senior Manager in May 2012.
Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions
Aug 2009 - Jun 2011
1 year 10 months
New York, NY
Data Analyst
Responsible for reporting writing and helping with data warehouse transition.
Condé Nast
May 2008 - Aug 2009
1 year 3 months
New York, NY
Consultant
Consultant role at Condé Nast publications.
Technical Skills
Frameworks & Libraries
Languages
Methodologies & Practices
Tools & Platforms
Featured Projects
AI-powered platform that transforms static resumes into intelligent, conversational portfolios. Solves the problem of one-dimensional resumes by enabling natural language Q&A about candidates' experience. Features RAG-based chatbot, multi-source ingestion (PDF, GitHub, LinkedIn), and GPT-4o parsing to make professional profiles instantly searchable and interactive.
- •RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) chatbot enabling natural language questions about experience
- •AI-powered resume parsing with GPT-4o extracting structured data from unstructured documents
- •Hybrid search combining semantic (pgvector) and full-text search (pg_trgm) for accuracy
- •Vector embeddings with text-embedding-3-small for intelligent semantic similarity matching
- •Intelligent deduplication using cosine similarity (0.92 threshold) to merge duplicate entries
- •Multi-tenant architecture supporting multiple user portfolios with authentication
- •Complete document processing pipeline turning PDFs into queryable knowledge bases
Browser-only React SPA that decomposes GitHub issues into atomic, actionable subtasks with AI assistance. Features a six-step workflow (Configuration → Issue Input → Clarification → Plan Review → Subtasks → Approval) with local plan storage and GitHub API integration for ticket creation.
- •AI-powered issue decomposition using OpenAI API for clarification questions and subtask generation
- •Complete client-side workflow with multi-step state management using React Context
- •Drag-and-drop subtask reordering with @dnd-kit for intuitive UX
- •GitHub API integration for fetching issues and creating tickets programmatically
- •Plan management system with localStorage persistence for reusable execution plans
- •Markdown editor integration with @uiw/react-md-editor for flexible input modes
Other Projects
Lord of the Rings character explorer built with Next.js 13 App Router, Server Components, and external API integration. Features advanced filtering, SSR for performance, and accessibility-first design.
- •Next.js App Router with Server Components for optimal performance
- •API integration with error handling and loading states
- •Advanced filtering by race, gender, and realm
- •Optimistic UI updates and data caching
- •Accessibility-first design with clean component architecture
IAP Automation System (Android)
Automated in-app purchase creation for OneStore (Android marketplace) with intelligent KRW price conversion, duplication detection, and regional pricing validation. Reduced 30+ minute manual process per IAP.
- •Complete browser automation for multi-step OneStore workflows
- •Product ID duplication checking via API integration
- •KRW price rounding and automatic conversion
- •Alert handling for form validation
- •Regional pricing compliance with screenshot debugging
Production-ready RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) system for technical documentation. Built with OpenAI API, pgvector for semantic search, and vector embeddings for intelligent question answering. Demonstrates full AI chatbot implementation with context-aware responses.
- •Complete RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) implementation with OpenAI API
- •Vector embeddings with text-embedding-3-small for semantic similarity matching
- •Natural language question answering with GPT-4 response generation
- •Context-aware responses with automatic source citations and relevance scoring
- •Real-time semantic search with pgvector and sub-second response times
- •Admin interface for FAQ content management and embedding regeneration
IAP Automation System (iOS)
Two-phase automation combining Apple Store Connect API and Playwright browser automation to create fully-configured in-app purchases from CSV data. Reduced manual IAP creation from hours to minutes.
- •Hybrid API + browser automation approach for complete workflow
- •Multi-language localization support with CSV ingestion
- •Automated territorial availability and pricing configuration
- •Screenshot upload for App Store review
- •Comprehensive error monitoring with visual debugging and dry-run validation
Take-home project demonstrating full-stack Elixir/Phoenix and React development with real-time WebSocket communication and responsive UI. Completed in 48 hours.
- •Real-time collaborative features with Phoenix Channels
- •React frontend with hooks and context API
- •Real-time state synchronization across clients
- •First major Elixir/Phoenix project - hands-on functional programming
- •Mobile-first responsive design
Real-time sports scoreboard with WebSocket updates, admin controls, and multi-game support. Node.js backend with Socket.io and React frontend featuring sports-broadcast inspired design.
- •Real-time score updates via Socket.io WebSockets
- •Admin panel for game management with CRUD operations
- •Multiple simultaneous games with routing
- •Responsive CSS Grid layout for various screen sizes
- •Smooth real-time updates across all connected clients