I am Jethro Lai.

Jul 2020 – Present

• Spearheaded the Customer Journey Platform, architecting mission-critical features for onboarding, upselling, and agreement management across two major brands, CloudKitchens and Otter.
• Architected ACE (All-round Communication Engine), a proprietary communication ecosystem that replaced third-party dependencies (Zendesk, Slack), streamlining support workflows and significantly reducing operational costs.
• Engineered OCC (Operation Command Center), a high-throughput automation hub processing millions of tasks hourly. Successfully automated manual onboarding processes, reducing lifecycle timelines from months to just days.
• Developed the Licensee Document Service, a global compliance engine standardizing complex international legal and construction requirements, drastically lowering regional labor costs and standardizing global documentation.
• Primary Owner of the Facility & Lease Agreement System, managing high-stakes financial contracts and lease lifecycle management for the entire CloudKitchens portfolio.

Nov 2019 – Apr 2020

• Founding member and designated tech lead of the LLC and Enterprise team.
• Top contributor of the LLC services and projects.
• Designed system architecture, implementation patterns and best practices for initial development.
• Provided mentorship to peer engineers.
• Directly worked on product development especially for complex subjects.

Oct 2017 – Nov 2019

• Created the Event Data Pipeline using AWS Kinesis, Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudFormation.
• Created real-time event based message triggering (Kinesis, Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS).
• Created the Image Service, the first REST API in the company (SpringBoot, ElasticBeanstalk).
• Created the Know Your Customer Service to support knowledge based authentication.
• Created Subscription service to manage user’s communication preference.
• Created real-time email tracking pipeline for measuring open, click, and other activities (ExactTarget, Kinesis, Lambda).
• Dockerized Advice & Communication Engine and migrated to EKS based platform.

• Full-Stack & DevOps Dual Impact: Successfully transitioned from infrastructure-focused DevOps to Full-Stack Engineering, bridging the gap between system stability and product innovation.
• Data Infrastructure: Developed scalable data processing systems for mission-critical client attribution, reporting, and large-scale analysis suites.
• Global Productivity Tools: Built internal technologies and proprietary platforms (Puppet forge, AWS guidebook, QJJB) to empower developers worldwide and promote operational excellence.
• Internal Ecosystem: Developed and operated over 40 internal services, including a Universal Ticketing System for company-wide task management and alerting.
• Strategic Collaboration: Partnered with UX and Product Management to design and implement high-fidelity, customer-facing reporting APIs and applications used globally.

Aug 2013 – Mar 2015

• 50% development, 25% product development, 25% project and team management.
• Led technical development in all perspectives including design, implementation, testing and operation.
• Re-implemented and refactored the entire system in first month for better maintainability, extensibility and robustness.
• Created development platforms and conventions including build process, implementation, model migration and testing.
• Implemented development process and coached all members about agile methodology.
• Implemented lots of integrations including Twilio APIs/TwiML, Google APIs, Microsoft Office 365 APIs, Salesforce APIs.
• Designed an interview process for a better hiring decision.

Jan 2011 – Aug 2013

• Developed backend and middleware services as APIs and data services for ingesting, synthesizing and delivering large data to core applications and products including X1/X2 platform, STBs, mobile and web clients.
• Developed universal integration test suites (GreenBuild). The test size and coverage grew over 10X. The number of tests increased from less than 100 to over 2000 cases and the coverage went from less than 10% to nearly 100%.
• Created a backwards compatibility test framework for core data services.

Sep 2008 – Dec 2010

• Lead Engineering Champion: Spearheaded full-stack engineering efforts, overseeing product development, frontend, backend, and infrastructure.
• Product Architect: Developed and launched the company's inaugural product, MeetPeoplePlaces, and its DARPA-funded successor, Updentity.
• Consultancy Lead: Successfully completed high-stake client projects, including major enterprise work for Sourcerer and KnolSoft Inc.

• Specialized Academic Focus: High-Performance Networking, Web Technologies, and Financial Systems.
• Core Distributed Systems: Research into building scalable, high-fidelity architectures for complex organizational needs.
• Engineering Leadership: Merging technical engineering principles with strategic business and finance logic.

• B.S. in Electrical Engineering: Comprehensive background in circuit design, electromagnetic waves, and engineering mathematics.
• Minor in Communication Engineering: Specialized study in telecommunication protocols, signal processing, and networking.
• Academic Foundation: Developed a rigorous, goal-oriented approach to complex engineering challenges.