Erik Tastepe
Experienced Software Engineer with a strong background in scaling technologies from startup to enterprise environments. Experience in leading technical strategy across AI, data, and full-stack software engineering.
About
Technical leader who drives projects from concept to production across diverse environments. My expertise spans high-throughput data pipelines, cloud architecture, and full-stack application development. I excel at bridging the gap between business objectives and technical implementation, having successfully delivered enterprise-grade solutions at growth-stage startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.
Skills and Certifications
Skills
Python, TypeScript, Rust, PostgreSQL, LangGraph, RAG, AWS, Spark, Docker
Certifications
AWS Certified Data Engineer, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Work Experience
Ponder
March 2024 - Present
Staff Software Engineer - AI & Backend
- Deployed production AI agents across social networks using LangGraph, OpenAI and Anthropic APIs to automate user interactions
- Built RAG pipelines to ingest and process real-time social data from X/Twitter and Farcaster APIs for AI agent consumption
- Developed ML clustering algorithms using scikit-learn to detect coordinated voting fraud in our polling product
- Built event-driven notification system using Redis and BullMQ job queues that increased daily active users by 200%
DRAUP
August 2023 - March 2024
Lead Engineer
- Led technical strategy for a digital fashion startup, acquired in 2024
- Architected scalable AWS infrastructure using Docker and Terraform, enhancing system reliability and supporting increased user demand
Silika Studio
January 2022 - May 2023
Co-founder
- Founded and scaled a blockchain development agency delivering full-stack applications that generated over $100k in client revenue
General Electric Aerospace
June 2020 - January 2022
Software Engineer - Data
- Built flight analytics platform using Python/Spark that reduced unplanned maintenance
- Developed a predictive maintenance system that processed over 100GB of daily in-flight data, enhancing maintenance scheduling efficiency
Education
Georgia Institute of Technology
MS Analytics - Computational Data Analytics
University of Florida
MS Materials Science and Engineering (Thesis)
BS Materials Science and Engineering - Semiconductor Materials
Publications
Fused silica contamination layer removal using magnetic field-assisted finishing
Long J, Ross D, Tastepe E, et al.
J Am Ceram Soc, 2020
Adhesive Joining of Composite Laminates Using Epoxy Resins with Stoichiometric Offset
Palmieri FL, Hudson TB, Cano RJ, Tastepe E, et al.
Annual Meeting of the Adhesion Society, 2019