Specialized Engineer • St. Paul, MN

Engineer for Unusual Problems, Live High-Stress Systems & Quant Trading.

30+ years of high-stakes engineering — from synchronizing frame-accurate midnight videos on non-standard billboards in NYC to global enterprise network rollouts for luxury German automotive manufacturers, building real-time crisis simulation platforms for international PR agencies, and engineering personal quant trading systems with human-in-the-loop AI agents.

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Note on Public GitHub: My public commit graph appears quiet because 100% of my active engineering is in proprietary quantitative trading repos and secure, private client infrastructure.
Read War Stories Explore Quant & AI Systems erik@mattheis.org
30+ Years Engineering
25+ Global Enterprise Brands
0 Manuals Needed for Hard Problems
// High-Stakes Case Studies

Solving the "Impossible" When There's No Manual

When failure is not an option and standard documentation doesn't exist, I reverse engineer solutions on tight deadlines. Click any card to expand the full 300+ word case study.

Hardware & Video Sync NYC Times Square Landmark

Non-Standard Billboard Frame-Accurate Midnight Video Sync

Tasked with executing a live video campaign on a custom triangular display overlooking a major New York City landmark with zero documentation or instruction manual. The video had to trigger and play synchronized to the exact millisecond at midnight.

  • Reverse-engineered controller protocols without vendor manuals.
  • Eliminated playback drift across angled display geometry.
  • Delivered flawless midnight execution live on location.
Enterprise Systems German Automotive Manufacturer

Enterprise Workstation Network Deployment

Engineered a custom interactive screensaver and deployment strategy for a global luxury automotive manufacturer to update all employee desktop workstations across their enterprise network simultaneously.

  • Built ultra-lightweight, zero-memory-leak executable payload.
  • Ensured multi-OS compatibility across corporate workstation fleets.
  • Executed zero-downtime deployment for tens of thousands of endpoints.
Live High-Stress Simulation Global Public Relations Agency

Interactive Social Media Crisis Simulator (Firebell)

Architected and built an isolated, real-time social crisis simulation application for a major international PR agency to put Fortune 500 C-suite executives through live, high-pressure "trial-by-fire" reputational emergency exercises.

  • Replicated working social platforms in a secure off-the-internet sandbox.
  • Simulated real-time viral panic timelines with live narrative twists.
  • Trained Fortune 500 C-suite, legal, and comms teams under authentic pressure.
// AI Agent Engineering & Specialized Applications

Building With & For AI Agents

Projects leveraging autonomous AI coders, LLM microservices, system diagnostic benchmarks, and custom quantitative engines. Click to view 300+ word deep dives.

Quant & AI Agents Personal Quant Platform

LineTrader: Quant Platform & Human-in-the-Loop AI

Personal quantitative trading platform featuring a high-performance DuckDB OHLCV bar cache, multi-timeframe backtesting, and autonomous AI agents that email interactive trade approvals for human confirmation.

  • DuckDB time-series caching with automatic gap detection.
  • LLM market sentiment and technical compression evaluation.
  • One-click cryptographic email token confirmation for live order execution.
Systems Diagnostics Node.js Performance Suite

Node.js Memory Leak Diagnostic Suite & Agent Benchmark

Built an isolated diagnostic suite and visual tutorial system to benchmark and train AI coding agents on identifying and resolving complex Node.js heap leaks, orphaned listeners, and circular closure references.

  • Diagnostic test beds for WebSocket listener and timer retention.
  • Used to benchmark AI agent performance on deep memory profiler output.
  • Resolved memory leaks in IBKR market data streaming microservices.
Multimodal AI Studio NaturallyHued.com

AI-Powered Generative Content & Asset Studio

Dynamic web application utilizing OpenAI GPT and DALL-E models to dynamically generate, edit, and catalog structured botanical dye articles and visual media with human-in-the-loop revision controls.

  • Vue 3 / Vite single-page app with Firebase Cloud Functions.
  • Interactive editorial revision portal sending conversational prompts to LLMs.
  • Automated text & image asset generation pipelines.
Data Harvesting DankSpider.com

Autonomous Web Scraping & Market Data Pipeline

High-throughput Node.js scraping engine utilizing Puppeteer, Google Search API, and MongoDB to autonomously crawl, parse, and structure enterprise corporate metadata and market intelligence.

  • Headless browser automation bypassing bot detection mechanisms.
  • JSON-to-CSV transformation and MongoDB document pipelines.
  • Fault-tolerant asynchronous worker queues with proxy management.
Vue 3 & Audio API Web Application

Interactive Web Audio & Canvas Slot Engine

Modular Vue 3 & Vuex application featuring custom CSS 3D reel transformations, low-latency Web Audio API synthesis, physics-based spin state machines, and synchronized payout animations.

  • Vue 3 state machine controlling spin velocity, reels, and credit meters.
  • Low-latency audio playback synchronized to reel stop events.
  • Modular component architecture (`BaseReel`, `SymbolFace`, `ThreeDButton`).
Healthcare Directory Articl.net

Medical Radiology Directory & AI Content Categorization

Radiology research article directory built with Node.js, MongoDB, and Vue.js. Integrates automated text processing to extract, index, and tag medical literature abstracts for radiology specialists.

  • Custom RESTful API in Node/Mongo with responsive Vue.js UI.
  • Automated indexing and categorization of radiology journal literature.
  • Custom CMS tools for research bookmarking and peer annotations.
// Quantitative Engineering & AI

Personal Quant Systems & Human-in-the-Loop AI

Building autonomous trading engines, high-throughput OHLCV data pipelines, and intelligent AI agents that seek human input for critical financial execution.

Proprietary Quant Engine (LineTrader)

I design and operate a custom algorithmic trading platform built specifically for my personal trading. The system handles multi-timeframe OHLCV caching, technical indicator pipelines, backtesting simulation, and live execution.

Human-in-the-Loop AI Agents

Rather than leaving trades completely unsupervised, I engineered AI agents that monitor market conditions, construct structured trade hypotheses, and email me directly for human confirmation with trade specs, risk parameters, and instant one-click approval tokens before any order hits the broker.

Automated Backtesting OHLCV Caching Risk Engines LLM / OpenAI Integration Interactive Email Triggers Node.js / Python / Vue
LIVE DEMO INTERFACE

AI Agent Trading Signal & Email Request

// Capabilities

Technical Architecture & Stack

Versatile across full-stack engineering, infrastructure, quantitative math, and rapid prototyping.

Languages & Runtimes

  • JavaScript (ES2018+)
  • TypeScript / Node.js
  • Python
  • PHP / WordPress
  • ColdFusion / MS SQL
  • HTML5 / CSS3 / SCSS

Frontend & Frameworks

  • Vue.js / Nuxt
  • AngularJS / Angular
  • React / Bootstrap
  • Responsive Design
  • Custom Canvas & Animation
  • Adobe CS / UI Prototyping

Quant & Data Systems

  • DuckDB & Parquet: @duckdb/node-api
  • Algorithmic Trading & Backtesting Engines
  • OHLCV Multi-Timeframe Bar Caching
  • OpenAI API & Autonomous LLM Agents
  • Human-in-the-Loop Email Execution Triggers
  • RESTful APIs & Real-time Webhooks

Cloud & Infrastructure

  • AWS SDK v3: @aws-sdk/client-s3
  • AWS Cloud (S3, EC2, Lambda)
  • MongoDB & Document DB Pipelines
  • Git / CI/CD & Automated Deployment
  • Google Cloud Platform & Netlify
  • Scrum Master & Agile Technical Leadership
  • Heroku / Netlify / Vercel
  • Google Cloud Platform
  • Scrum Master & Agile Leadership
    • // Track Record

    Client Highlights & Work History

    Trusted by government agencies, Fortune 500 corporations, and specialized institutions.

    BMW The Coca-Cola Company McDonald’s NASA Honeywell Estée Lauder Boston Scientific BP U.S. Army U.S. Bank Nickelodeon Roche GmbH Toshiba State Farm MN Homeland Security Bahamas Tourism Jostens Great Clips

    Independent Engineering & Quant Development

    Nov 2012 – Present

    Senior Full Stack Engineer / Systems Architect

    • Personal Quantitative Systems: Architecting and maintaining LineTrader, a multi-timeframe algorithmic trading engine featuring LLM AI agents with human-in-the-loop confirmation.
    • Articl.net: Developed a medical radiology article directory with a custom CMS and AI-assisted content categorization using Node.js, MongoDB, and Vue.js.
    • Grocery Shopping Network: Enhanced core digital consumer platform products using AngularJS and microservices.
    • New York Hall of Science: Managed and maintained high-traffic web applications, custom platforms, and AWS cloud infrastructure.

    Web Development Supervisor

    2005 – 2012

    Weber Shandwick

    • Architected and built Firebell, Weber Shandwick's proprietary Social Crisis Simulator application used globally to train Fortune 500 C-suite executives in secure, real-time crisis environments.
    • Led engineering teams developing custom rich desktop applications, web-based platforms, and interactive campaigns for government and Fortune 500 clients.
    • Served as Scrum Master and Senior Developer managing cross-functional technical teams.

    Independent Web Developer & Systems Specialist

    1996 – 2005

    Client Services & Systems Administration

    • Full-stack web architecture, server administration, and early interactive web applications.

    Education

    B.S. in Philosophy and Religion, 1991 — University of North Carolina Wilmington

    // Get In Touch

    Have an unusual engineering challenge?

    Whether you need a specialized full-stack engineer for a high-stakes deployment, want to discuss quant trading systems, or need someone who thrives when there's no manual, let's talk.

    erik@mattheis.org 612-377-2272
    Saint Paul, MN
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