--- title: "Jarrod Carlson — Principal Software Engineer, Platform & Site Reliability, 20 years in production" canonical: "https://builtbyjarrod.com" --- # Jarrod Carlson Hi, I'm Jarrod. I build the platforms other engineers rely on. Principal Software Engineer · Platform & Site Reliability · 20 years in production **Availability:** Open to principal & staff platform / SRE roles ## About Me **Complex problems are the fun part.** For twenty years I've turned them into systems that ship on time, scale to billions of requests, and hold up long after launch day. No shortcuts, just hard-earned engineering and an obsession with the details others skip. ### Proven at Scale From startup storefronts to enterprise platforms serving billions of requests. I've seen what breaks at scale—and built what doesn't. ### Full-Stack Range Equally at home in a React storefront or the Terraform beneath it. No layer of the stack is off limits. ### AI-First Workflow Claude Code, MCP tooling, and spec-driven development that turn feature weeks into feature days. ### Zero-Drama Delivery Zero-downtime migrations, zero data loss, twenty years of shipping without surprises. ## Experience ### [Principal Software Engineer – Platform & Site Reliability Engineering — Cox Automotive, Inc.](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/cox-automotive.md) Sep 2018 – Apr 2026 · Atlanta, GA (Remote) Built the Logistics division's platform-as-a-service from the ground up — a Heroku-style PaaS running 165+ applications for 200+ engineers, fronted by an API gateway handling 15 billion requests a year — then led the shift to AI-first engineering. ### [Senior Developer — Trineo Ltd](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/trineo.md) Oct 2016 – Sep 2018 · Boulder, CO Shipped client products for a consultancy later acquired by Salesforce — the Ikon Pass e-commerce storefront for Alterra, and the proof-of-performance platform that retired Clear Channel Outdoor's century-old Polaroid-and-mail workflow. ### [Senior Development Consultant (Contract) — Home Depot](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/home-depot.md) May 2016 – Sep 2016 · Atlanta, GA Architected the move from legacy Java to Rails, React, and React Native on in-store handheld devices — cutting deployment cycles from 5+ days to under 2 for Home Depot's merchandising teams. ### [Senior Rails Developer (Contract) — Manheim](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/manheim.md) Nov 2015 – Apr 2016 · Atlanta, GA Built SFAPI, a greenfield Rails service brokering post-auction paperwork between Manheim's online platforms and rate-limited AS400 legacy systems — accept fast, queue durably, retry safely. It was still in service six years later. ### [Senior Rails Developer & Team Lead — Springbot](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/springbot.md) Jul 2014 – Oct 2015 · Atlanta, GA My first formal lead role — hired and led the team that automatically listed Magento merchants' catalogs, tens of thousands of SKUs at a time, on the Amazon Marketplace, taking on far better-funded competitors from a seed-stage startup. ### [Senior Software Developer — DealerMatch](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/dealermatch.md) Mar 2013 – Jun 2014 · Atlanta, GA Became the de facto technical voice on a 20-developer, full-time-pairing team, hardening a consultant-built single-page-app prototype into a production marketplace where dealers traded millions of vehicles — and skipped the auction. ### [Senior Solutions Architect → Director of Technical Operations — PlayON Sports](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/playon.md) Jul 2010 – Mar 2013 · Atlanta, GA Among the first employees at the startup rebuilding PlayOn after Turner Broadcasting — architected the video platform, then ran field production operations for live high-school sports. That platform is now the NFHS Network, streaming more live events than anyone in the world. ### [Web Developer — Turner Broadcasting System](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/turner-broadcasting.md) Sep 2006 – Jun 2010 · Atlanta, GA Web developer in Turner Sports New Media — on PlayOn Sports from day one, then nba.com in the League Pass era, building early video-engagement telemetry — until the PlayOn brand left Turner, and I followed it. ### [Assistant Manager of Internet Operations — University of Georgia](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/uga.md) Nov 2002 – Sep 2006 · Athens, GA Started as an unpaid intern posting game recaps; left running georgiadogs.com — a full replatform, a redesign, and GXtra, a subscription streaming service years ahead of its time — all while finishing my degree. ## Contact - **Book a call:** [cal.com/jarrod-carlson/build](https://cal.com/jarrod-carlson/build) - **Email:** [jarrod.carlson@gmail.com](mailto:jarrod.carlson@gmail.com) - **LinkedIn:** [www.linkedin.com/in/jarrodcarlson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarrodcarlson/) - **GitHub:** [github.com/jcarlson](https://github.com/jcarlson) --- Every page on this site has a markdown twin at the same path with `.md` appended — e.g. [builtbyjarrod.com/experience/cox-automotive.md](https://builtbyjarrod.com/experience/cox-automotive.md). 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