Steven Stanton

Principal Software Engineer | AI-Enhanced Real-Time Communication Systems & Cloud Architecture 20+ years building real-time communication and data systems. Currently sole technical owner of a Go and AWS platform serving 100M+ monthly requests alongside self-hosted GPU inference. Named inventor on US Patent 12,282,881. Track record of order-of-magnitude cost and performance gains.

The languages, tools, and infrastructure behind this work are listed on my stack page, and selected personal projects are on my projects page.

AI Enhanced, Not AI First Link to heading

I believe in using AI to enhance my abilities, not replace them. AI plays a role in my workflow for brainstorming, high-level discussions, boilerplate code, testing, documentation, and code reviews. I still read and verify every single line of code, function, test, and document that is pushed. I maintain strict accountability for the security, performance, and accuracy of all deployed code, regardless of the tooling used to generate it.

Resume Link to heading

📄 Download PDF Resume

Experience Link to heading

Smart Technologies, Inc. (DailyStream.com) Link to heading

Principal Software Engineer | Mar 2025 – Present

Returned to the company to lead the platform built on the remote workstation capture technology I invented and patented. Sole technical decision-maker for the platform, turning business goals into architecture, infrastructure, and delivery across a Windows client fleet, a serverless Go backend, real-time delivery systems, and self-hosted AI infrastructure on AWS.

  • Architected a serverless migration from Node.js/EC2 to Go on AWS Lambda, scaling system capacity to support 100M+ monthly requests while reducing compute infrastructure costs by over 99%.
  • Built a self-hosted vision-AI pipeline (Qwen2.5-VL 32B on vLLM/L40S) that processes 4M+ screenshots/month without customer data ever leaving the AWS account, with queue-depth GPU autoscaling and deterministic Go state machines for task tracking and credential-exposure detection.
  • Engineered a custom Go recording engine for Windows thin clients that pipes in-memory frames directly to FFmpeg (image2pipe) with hardware-accelerated encoding (NVENC/QSV), eliminating disk I/O bottlenecks, and extended it with a plugin architecture.
  • Designed a self-managed Go WebSocket push server supporting 25k concurrent connections on a single 4GB instance, with ACK-based at-least-once delivery, replay on reconnect, diff-based rollout push, and sub-second graceful drain on deploy.
  • Optimized data layer efficiency by replacing managed Redis with ValKey Serverless, achieving a 98% reduction in caching operational costs without compromising latency.
  • Implemented native user activity monitoring to track input metrics and detect artificial activity patterns (“jiggler” detection) for compliance verification, and stuck key rejection for enhanced user idle detection.
  • Built a dependency-free canvas video player reconstructing a full day from 2,880 segments, with multi-monitor compositing, adaptive lookahead buffering, and HTTP-poll live sync.
  • Built a self-hosted call-analysis engine co-hosting ASR, emotion, and LLM models.

Tech: Go · AWS Lambda · ValKey · WebRTC · FFmpeg (NVENC/QSV) · Windows API · TypeScript · vLLM · SQS · Kinesis Firehose · WebSockets · MSSQL

CallPotential / Storable Link to heading

Senior Software Engineer | Jan 2024 - Feb 2025

Retained through the acquisition of CallPotential and transitioned to Storable’s core engineering team to support backend modernization and improve developer workflows.

  • Built and optimized new Nest.js microservices while developing features within existing legacy PHP systems.
  • Built cross-platform deployment tooling to unify local development environments across Windows and Linux, reducing environment inconsistencies for the team.
  • Mentored mid-level and junior engineers through code reviews and pairing sessions to support team growth.
  • Worked with Liquibase for database migrations and schema versioning within the team’s architectural standards.

Software Engineer | Dec 2022 - Jan 2024

Founding engineer on the AI Agent team, building a real-time, voice-driven customer interaction system.

  • Engineered a low-latency conversational agent by orchestrating Twilio Media Streams with LLM and TTS providers to enable natural, real-time voice conversations.
  • Applied Domain-Driven Design (DDD) and event storming to model complex conversational flows and architect a scalable, event-driven system.
  • Designed fault-tolerant C# services with robust fallback strategies to ensure system availability despite the non-deterministic nature of LLM responses.
  • Collaborated directly with product and engineering leadership to define the technical roadmap and feasibility for conversational AI features.

Tech: NestJS · PHP · Liquibase · C# · Node.js · AngularJS · AWS · Twilio · Terraform

Smart Technologies, Inc. (Smart Sales & Lease) Link to heading

Staff Software Engineer | Nov 2016 - Dec 2022

  • Invented and patented the company’s core remote workstation monitoring technology (US Pat. No. 12,282,881), developing the original recording engine and Chrome extension for real-time compliance tracking.
  • Led and mentored a 3-member engineering team while serving as the primary technical liaison for shareholders, department heads, and external partners.
  • Directed the migration from single dedicated servers to a multi-AZ AWS infrastructure, reducing IT expenditures by 65% while enhancing system reliability.
  • Spearheaded MSSQL database restructuring and query optimization, improving performance by 10x across 900K+ customer accounts.
  • Established coding standards and led DevOps operations, ensuring secure, consistent deployment processes across the engineering team.
  • Directed PCI compliance strategy and security audits for a platform processing millions in annual revenue.

Senior Software Engineer | Feb 2015 - Nov 2016

  • Designed and developed real-time communication and B2B platforms using Node.js and Socket.io.
  • Migrated legacy software systems to modern cloud architectures, ensuring seamless data sharing across interconnected servers.
  • Managed and optimized a high-volume MSSQL database supporting thousands of daily queries.
  • Collaborated with vendors to integrate third-party services and provided direct technical troubleshooting for key clients.
  • Rebuilt the legacy call center system using Twilio and Node.js, replacing hardware phones with a custom browser-based B2B communication portal.

Tech: AWS · Node.js · React · MSSQL · Redis · Twilio · Socket.io · Chrome Extensions

SAW Computing Link to heading

Software Engineer | Sep 2005 – Jan 2015

  • Delivered custom backend and full-stack solutions for clients across sales, support services, and healthcare sectors.
  • Built secure communication systems, CRM platforms, and business automation tools using PHP, JavaScript, and SQL.
  • Developed custom WordPress plugins and optimized site functionality for performance and security.
  • Designed and optimized database-driven applications and system architectures to meet specific client needs.

Tech: PHP · JavaScript · SQL · WordPress · Custom Software Development

Patents Link to heading

US 12,282,881 - Remote Capture and Viewing of Workstation Activity (April 2025)