Nathan Heskew

Building Internet Things

Professional Summary

Technical leader and distributed systems architect with deep expertise building high-performance platforms and developer tools at scale. Strong focus on Node.js, real-time systems, and developer experience.

Experienced across the full spectrum from 0-to-1 product development at startups to evolving enterprise platforms through multiple growth phases.

Professional Experience

Harper

Node.js Software Engineer (April 2025 - Present)

Contributing to Harper's open-source Node.js performance platform that unifies database, cache, application, and messaging layers into a single in-memory process.

Built the OAuth plugin (@harperfast/oauth, formerly @harperdb/oauth), a complete OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect authentication system with multi-provider support (GitHub, Google, Azure AD, Auth0, and any custom OIDC provider), OIDC ID-token verification, automatic token refresh, lifecycle hooks for user provisioning, and CSRF protection
Extended the plugin into an OAuth 2.1 authorization server for MCP (Model Context Protocol) clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor, mcp-remote), with PKCE, RFC 7591 dynamic client registration, Client ID Metadata Document (CIMD) support, and rotating JWT signing keys (ES256/RS256), so agent tools authenticate against the same upstream providers as human users
Contributing to Harper core development, now open-source-first as of its v5 release (shipped; currently v5.2)
Led an initial reset of the platform's documentation infrastructure; a teammate has owned it since
Created Harper DX Lab, automated developer experience testing framework that runs AI coding agents (Claude Code) against Harper's APIs and documentation across 6 tiers of increasing complexity, diagnosing failures and classifying DX gaps with reproducible evidence
Built FlowSense, real-time supply chain monitoring demo showcasing Harper's collapsed stack architecture (database + REST + MQTT + background tasks in a single process), with React/Leaflet dashboard, MQTT-over-WebSocket live updates, and a disruption simulation engine

Microsoft

Senior Software Engineer (2022 - 2025)

Architected and led development of learn.microsoft.com's Node.js-based rendering layer serving 77M monthly active users and 200M pageviews, migrating from static HTML generation to SSR for greater flexibility and tighter feature integration
Designed distributed build and release pipeline architecture using Azure DevOps, reducing deployment cycle times while improving release reliability across global Azure regions
Implemented multi-environment deployment strategy on Azure (App Service, CDN, Traffic Manager) supporting development, staging, and production environments with consistent configuration management
Built internal CLI tools and developer documentation that improved team velocity and reduced new engineer onboarding time
Led architectural improvements to video processing pipeline, reducing transcoding time while maintaining quality
Enhanced video delivery system supporting HLS/DASH formats with improved global content delivery performance

Senior Software Engineering Manager (2020 - 2022)

Continued development of rendering layer for Microsoft's developer documentation platform
Mentored intern who won internal hackathon with server-side rendering proof-of-concept, which later influenced production architecture
Established technical standards and review processes that improved system reliability
Guided team's adoption of automated testing and continuous deployment practices

Senior Software Engineer (2019 - 2020)

Initiated and led the development of a new rendering layer for docs.microsoft.com (now learn.microsoft.com)

SkewTech, LLC

Founder (2015 - 2023)

Independent consultancy specializing in distributed systems architecture and cloud-native transformations.

Epoch

Senior Software Engineer (2016 - 2018)

Architected high-throughput payment processing services using Node.js microservices
Implemented PCI-DSS compliant workflows with end-to-end encryption
Built scalable infrastructure using AWS, Docker, and Kubernetes

NearForm

Software Architect (2015 - 2016)

Led strategy to modernize monolithic Java system into Node.js microservices
Designed incremental migration path enabling gradual adoption
Established patterns for legacy system evolution and integration

Joy the App

Senior Software Engineer (2015)

Early engineer at Joy, Seattle-founded wedding-planning platform (website + iOS/Android apps). Joy went on to Y Combinator S16 (named a top-7 startup of its batch by TechCrunch) and has raised ~$130M to date; still active.

Built real-time synchronization between clients using WebSockets for seamless collaborative experiences across web and mobile
Developed scalable backend services with Firebase and Azure
Built iOS and Android app functionality alongside the backend work

Tagboard

Senior Software Engineer (2013 - 2015)

Built real-time social data aggregation system using Node.js and MongoDB
Implemented Redis caching strategies, optimizing performance and reducing API costs
Implemented WebSocket connections for real-time social data updates, reducing latency for live event displays
Early adoption of Hapi.js for reliable web services
Unit and integration testing with Jest

Hidden Pineapple, LLC

Co-founder (2010 - 2013)

Two-person company (with Erik Porter, met working on Channel 9) behind Rowi, a Twitter client for Windows Phone, built and run concurrently with the Microsoft day job. Also shipped a Channel 9 Windows Phone 8 app (browse/rate/view video for channel9.msdn.com, June 2013, per LinkedIn projects).

Co-built and shipped Rowi from first code (Dec 2010) through public beta (Feb 2011), paid v1.0 (spring 2011, plus free Lite version), and a Windows Phone 8 rework (v3.0, Dec 2012), Live Tiles, push notifications, real-time streaming refresh, image upload
Grew the free tier to Twitter's 100,000-user API token cap (Aug 2013); the paid app subsequently hit its own cap before the service wound down (Dec 2013)
Consistently reviewed as the platform's best Twitter client, Windows Central called it "Windows Phone's Tweetbot" and "one of the flagship apps on the platform"; covered by MobileSyrup, Adweek, MakeUseOf; featured developer interview on Microsoft's official Windows blog (2012)

Microsoft

Senior Software Development Engineer (2006 - 2012)

2011-2012: Led development of the Azure developer portal and billing systems frontend using C#/.NET and ASP.NET MVC, building the self-service management experience for Azure's early commercial customers
2009-2011: Co-founded the Orchard CMS project, an open-source C#/.NET content management system with significant community adoption, architecting the admin interface, UI composition engine, and extensibility model
2008-2009: Led development of Oxite, an open-source C#/ASP.NET MVC CMS that powered Channel9 and MIX conference sites
2006-2008: Created JavaScript framework for MSN properties with performance optimizations for high-traffic web properties

University of Washington Bothell

Web Application Developer (2000 - 2005)

Architected and developed web applications using Perl, MySQL, and Yellow Dog Linux
Managed web and database server administration
Built and maintained critical university web infrastructure

Side Projects & Open Source

Hone

Self-hosted personal finance tool detecting wasteful spending. Rust + React, SQLite with encryption, and local LLM integration (agentic analysis over Ollama, task-based model routing, RAG-style retrieval over transaction data).

GitHub: github.com/heskew/hone
Site: hone.money

Harper DX Lab

Automated developer experience testing for Harper using AI coding agents. Runs tiered assignments (CRUD → relationships → custom resources → real-time → caching → capstone) against isolated Harper instances, diagnosing failures and classifying DX improvements with reproducible evidence.

GitHub: github.com/heskew/harper-dx-lab

FlowSense

Real-time supply chain command center demo built entirely on Harper's collapsed stack architecture. Single Harper instance serves as database, REST API, MQTT broker, and background execution engine, no separate middleware or message broker. React + Vite + Leaflet dashboard with live shipment tracking, disruption simulation, and MQTT-over-WebSocket updates.

GitHub: github.com/heskew/flowsense-demo

TPS: Team Provisioning System (2026)

Agent OS for building teams of AI agents that coordinate, remember, and ship autonomously. Components: Flair (v0.44.x, federated identity/memory/soul substrate spanning 11 agent harnesses, 9 published npm packages plus a Python plugin; Ed25519 cryptographic auth, BM25+vector hybrid retrieval via in-process embeddings, REM memory curation, A2A federation, fleet ops tooling), CLI (agent lifecycle, Docker offices with 4-layer isolation, Maildir-based async messaging with pub/sub, multi-provider LLM support), and Agent Runtime (@tpsdev-ai/agent, headless execution engine with tool-use loop, daemon mode, CLI runtime providers for Claude Code/Codex/Gemini CLI via OAuth, per-platform binaries). 600+ tests across the stack. TypeScript/Node.js.

Site: tps.dev
GitHub: github.com/tpsdev-ai/cli · github.com/tpsdev-ai/flair

harper-fabric-embeddings

Minimal llama.cpp embedding engine for Harper Fabric, direct N-API integration at ~19 MB installed (vs 250+ MB for full node-llama-cpp), GGUF models, models.embed() and @embed table directives, query/document prompt templating. Published to npm (v0.5.x); serves as the embedding engine inside Flair, a two-project production dependency chain I own end to end.

GitHub: github.com/heskew/harper-fabric-embeddings

what's up Dug?

Interactive terminal UI for exploring Harper databases with vi-style navigation, fuzzy-search column selection, foreign key traversal, query building with filters/sorting, and adaptive pagination. Published to npm. TypeScript/Bun.

GitHub: github.com/heskew/whats-up-dug

Technical Skills

Core Expertise

Distributed Systems Architecture
Web Performance
API Design
Real-time Data Processing
Cloud Infrastructure (AWS, Azure)
Container Orchestration

Languages & Runtimes

Primary: Node.js/TypeScript, JavaScript
Proficient: C#/.NET, Java, Go
Familiar: Python, Rust

Server Technologies

Node.js, fastify, hapi, Express
Redis, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL
Linux, Windows Server

Cloud & Infrastructure

AWS (EC2, Lambda, S3, CloudFront, etc.)
Azure (App Service, Functions, CDN, etc.)
Docker, Kubernetes
CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps)

Security

OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect
Payment Systems Security, PCI-DSS
Zero Trust Architecture

APIs & Data

REST
WebSockets, Server-Sent Events

Frontend & UI

React, Next.js
Server-Side Rendering
Progressive Web Apps
Web Performance Optimization
Accessibility

Leadership & Process

Technical Strategy
Architecture Modernization
Team Mentorship
Platform Design
Technical Writing & Documentation