Data & Backend Engineer (Tooling / Reliability) • 📍 Baltimore, MD • 📫 imZackAdams@protonmail.com
I build developer-facing tools and data systems with a focus on correctness, simplicity, and real-world usability.
My work centers on CLI-first tooling, data ingestion and validation, and lightweight backend systems that are easy to reason about and cheap to operate. I gravitate toward software that fails loudly, encodes assumptions explicitly, and integrates cleanly into local workflows and CI pipelines.
I care less about trends and more about whether a system:
- Is predictable and inspectable
- Handles failure modes honestly
- Solves a real operational problem
I’ve designed and shipped:
- Python CLI tools for inspecting, validating, and diagnosing real-world data and APIs
- Data ingestion and processing pipelines with a focus on reliability and automation
- Lightweight backend utilities and internal tools used in production workflows
- Browser- and edge-native systems that minimize infrastructure and operational overhead
- Small, opinionated systems that prioritize correctness over complexity
Languages: Python, SQL, JavaScript
Data & Tooling: Pandas, NumPy, Python CLI development, data validation and ingestion pipelines
Systems & Infrastructure: Linux, Docker, Git, CI/CD pipelines, AWS and Azure fundamentals
Backend & Interfaces: REST APIs, automation scripts, HTML/CSS
Distributed & Edge (selective use): WebRTC, WebAssembly, WebCrypto
- GlassBox Inspect — CLI tool for auditing datasets for structural integrity and data quality before downstream use, with CI-friendly exit codes and machine-readable output
- PingPoint — Python CLI for diagnosing DNS, TLS, and HTTP issues, published on PyPI
- AIMless — 10 KB peer-to-peer encrypted chat application implemented in a single HTML file with no backend dependency
- NyxPay — Browser-native payment checkout system emphasizing static delivery and minimal infrastructure
- NyxMesh — Browser-native peer-to-peer compute experiments using WebRTC coordination
Additional detail available in pinned repositories.
- Data inspection, validation, and reliability tooling
- CLI-first developer tools
- Lightweight backend systems and internal tooling
- Failure-aware system design and automation
Open to interesting engineering problems, tooling work, and collaborations.