Jake Nelson

Summary

Front-end-focused senior engineer who leads teams on large React and TypeScript codebases, and who has spent the last few years on a second discipline: making AI-assisted development reliable enough to trust with real work.

At RV LIFE I provided technical and team leadership across multiple teams on a micro-frontend architecture, including the design system and its accessible, composable components, and built a layer of agentic development tooling that I used in my day-to-day work. Before software I managed people and accounts in logistics and sales, which is why I care as much about how a team works as about what it ships.

Agentic engineering

Work across the software development lifecycle, delivered as reusable agent infrastructure rather than one-off prompts.

MCP server. Designed and built a Model Context Protocol server exposing internal systems as typed, scoped tools so agents can act on real data with least-privilege access and auditable calls.
Custom skills library. Authored a suite of skills that package repeatable engineering workflows — brainstorming and spec-writing, plan execution, TDD loops, code review, release and deploy runbooks — so an agent picks the right procedure instead of improvising.
Harness engineering. Built orchestration that fans work out to parallel subagents, routes results through adversarial verification, and gates merges on evidence rather than assertions. Designed for resumability and cheap failure.
Multi-agent systems in production. Architected an event-driven trading system that routes live news through a five-agent LLM pipeline into structured signals, with layered risk controls and circuit breakers. Case study →

Claude Code
Anthropic API
MCP
tool use
structured outputs
eval harnesses
prompt caching

Experience

2022 — 2026

Senior Software Engineer & Technical Lead RV LIFE

Technical and team lead across multiple front-end teams building RV LIFE's consumer products on a micro-frontend architecture.

Led architecture and delivery across several teams sharing a micro-frontend platform in React, Next.js, TypeScript, and Node — owning how independently deployed apps compose, share state, and stay consistent.
Helped build the design system — accessible, flexible components that multiple teams compose into their own apps — along with the conventions and review practices that keep them consistent.
Introduced agentic engineering to the workflow — agent harnesses, MCP tooling, and custom skills that automate spec-writing, implementation, review, and release tasks — and coached engineers on working with them.
Contributed to project and product direction: scoping, sequencing, and trade-offs with product and design, not just implementation.

React
Next.js
TypeScript
Node
micro frontends
design systems
accessibility
agentic engineering

2019 — 2022

Software Engineer Crossover Health

Digital-first healthcare platform serving members, clinicians, and administrators. Remote.

Led development of new UI features on both the member-facing and administrative applications.
Collaborated across product, clinical, and platform teams to ship a dependable product in a regulated domain.
Served as a go-to resource for project knowledge, technical advice, and code review.

React
Redux
TypeScript
Jest
Cypress

2017 — 2019

Front-end Software Engineer Clinton Electronics

Security-camera manufacturer; built internal and customer-facing web tools on an agile team.

Built a CMS for the security and marketing teams from the ground up in React, TypeScript, and Node.
Made the library and framework decisions for the front end and established unit testing to keep builds green across handoffs.

React
TypeScript
Node
Express
MongoDB

2017 — present

Independent Consultant Freelance

Web development for small clients alongside full-time roles — MERN-stack applications, React front ends, and WordPress sites.

2007 — 2017

Before software Operations, audit, and sales

Contracting auditor at National Guardian Life (automated reporting for the contracting team); client relations and logistics account manager at Rockfarm Supply Chain Solutions (owned KPIs, billing, and cost-saving initiatives for a major client); VP of Sales at a non-profit business incubator; performance instructor at a Lowe's distribution center. Ten years of managing people, accounts, and processes before writing code for a living.

Skills

languages: TypeScript, JavaScript (ES2015+), HTML & CSS, SQL, Python
front end: React, Next.js, micro-frontend architecture, Redux, design systems, accessibility, component composition, CSS/Sass, Webpack
back end: Node, Express, REST and WebSocket APIs, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis
ai & agents: Anthropic API, MCP server design, Claude Code skills and hooks, multi-agent orchestration, eval and verification harnesses
practice: Technical and team leadership, code review, TDD (Jest, Cypress), agile delivery, CI/CD (GitHub Actions), Docker, technical writing and runbooks

Education

2016 — 2017: freeCodeCamp — Front End and Full Stack Web Development certifications
2012 — 2014: Rock Valley College — Business Administration, entrepreneurship focus; Global Small Business Incubator, Enactus

Selected work

2026