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Phillip Young

Full-Stack Software Engineer

I build marketplaces, platforms, and polished web experiences — from scratch.

uptime: 14 yrs · shell: /bin/full-stack · status: accepting connections

PHILLIP-OS v14.0 (tty1)
type 'help' to list commands. try 'sudo hire-me'.

ABOUT

Creative and pragmatic engineer with 14 years of experience. Specializes in full-stack web development and building complex interactive platforms from scratch. Passionate about creating performant, scalable products with clean architecture and thoughtful user experiences.

  • userPhillip (Phillip Young)
  • roleFull-Stack Software Engineer
  • uptime14 years of experience
  • kernelphillip-os v14.0 (est. 1997)
Film photo from April 1997: Phillip as a kid in an oversized white shirt, spraying a toy motorcycle with a garden hose on a wet driveway.
Washing the bike — April 26, 1997 — hover/focus to restore colors

WORK

[MAR 2025 – PRESENT] BOROBOROS — FOUNDER & FULL-STACK DEVELOPER

remote · boroboros.com [ACTIVE]

Building a zero-fee, peer-to-peer men's fashion marketplace as sole engineer — a ~110k-line TypeScript monorepo (React PWA, ~70 Firebase Cloud Functions) with 550+ commits shipped over the last 18 months.

  • Pivoted the dormant Betaflops platform into a multi-brand architecture serving two storefronts from one codebase: domain-driven branding, per-brand Vite builds with env-injected PWA manifests, and Firebase multi-site hosting.
  • Designed a cross-marketplace listing engine for eBay, Grailed, and Depop — Cloud Functions build canonical payloads, a Firestore-backed queue tracks operations, and a Chrome (MV3) extension executes them through the seller's own logged-in sessions, with exactly-once posting via Web Locks leader election, sync tokens, and server-side claims.
  • Implemented marketplace payments on PayPal: partner-referral seller onboarding, instant-disbursement captures with platform fees, and binding offers backed by 48-hour authorizations that capture on acceptance or auto-void via Cloud Tasks; webhook-driven refund and dispute handling.
  • Automated listing creation with Gemini structured-output extraction (category, size, brand, color, material, condition from photos) using per-market dynamic schemas, plus voice dictation input.
  • Extended Typesense search with per-market facet schemas and semantic similar-item search via auto-embedded listing vectors.
  • Built bidirectional inventory sync (weekly/biweekly schedulers) with price mirroring, sold/deleted reconciliation across platforms, and Levenshtein-based relist detection.
  • Kept scraping-based importers alive against bot management by iterating from Chrome TLS-fingerprint impersonation to geo-pinned residential proxies, with scheduled per-marketplace health-check canaries.
  • Served Open Graph link previews for the SPA with a Cloudflare Worker + KV populated from Firestore triggers.
  • Modernized the 2020-era codebase: CRA → Vite 8, Firebase Functions v1 → v2 (Node 24), React Router 7, joi → zod, with 20+ production data-migration scripts.
  • Built a streaming image pipeline (busboy → sharp → WebP + thumbnails) with Cloud Vision SafeSearch moderation.

stack: React · TypeScript · Vite · Firebase · Firestore · GCP · Typesense · PayPal · Gemini · Cloudflare Workers · Chrome Extensions

[MAR 2023 – MAR 2025] OPENEXUS — SOFTWARE ENGINEER

remote · openexus.com

One of the first two employees at a venture-backed startup building a modular app and workflow platform.

  • Helped establish core engineering practices and technical direction using TypeScript and Solid.js.
  • Designed and implemented Postgres integration: schema architecture, frontend bindings with caching, and optimistic updates.
  • Built custom Vite plugins to compile user-written JavaScript and bundle Python code for in-browser execution.
  • Developed framework-specific libraries for React, Svelte, Vue, and Solid to integrate with the platform.
  • Architected a secure iframe-based sandbox for executing user modules with messaging and data syncing.
  • Created a granular permissions and sharing model for user-created apps.
  • Built modules for integrations including Airtable, Dropbox, Spotify, AI, and crypto APIs.
  • Implemented user onboarding with interactive tutorials and demo apps.
  • Wrote external developer documentation using Docusaurus.
  • Integrated analytics via OpenReplay, PostHog, Clarity, and Umami (with proxying for ad-block evasion).
  • Managed deployments with AWS Copilot, Fargate, ECS, and CodePipeline.

stack: TypeScript · Solid.js · Postgres · Vite · AWS

[2018 – 2022] BETAFLOPS — FOUNDER & FULL-STACK DEVELOPER

remote · betaflops.com

Solo-built a peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling mechanical keyboards.

  • Integrated PayPal Marketplaces API for order and payment handling.
  • Built an integrated chat app with support for image sharing, notifications, and tracking orders.
  • Developed a fast, full-text search and filtering experience using Typesense and InstantSearch.js.
  • Used Google Vision and AI tools to automate content moderation.
  • Designed a cost-efficient document-based database schema with built-in redundancy to optimize cloud resource usage.
  • Wrote responsive transactional and marketing emails using MJML, and handled delivery via Amazon SES and SendGrid.

stack: React · TypeScript · Firebase · Firestore · GCP · Cloud Functions · Typesense · Elastic UI

[AUG 2012 – AUG 2017] ORACLE — SENIOR HARDWARE ENGINEER

santa clara, ca

Contributed to SPARC processor development by building physical design tools and automation workflows.

  • Developed algorithms and visualization tools in Perl, Tcl/Tk, and C to optimize floorplanning and routing.
  • Created reusable, electromagnetically clean bus-routing patterns later adopted by Synopsys.
  • Designed congestion maps and GUIs to visualize ASIC layout constraints.
  • Built shape-aware data structures to avoid DRC errors across massive metal/via datasets.
  • Optimized tool runtime and memory use via parallelism for 7nm process nodes.
  • Led transition from 10nm to 7nm tooling process across the team.

stack: Perl · Tcl/Tk · C

PROJECTS

BOROBOROS

[LIVE]

A zero-fee, peer-to-peer marketplace for men's fashion. · 2025 – Present · Founder, designer, and sole engineer

A men's fashion marketplace — "where clothes find new life" — built by pivoting the Betaflops platform into a multi-brand architecture: one ~110k-line TypeScript codebase serving two branded storefronts. The name blends ouroboros with boro, the Japanese tradition of textile repair and reuse.

  • Crosslisting engine for eBay, Grailed, and Depop: Cloud Functions build canonical listing payloads, a Firestore-backed queue tracks operations, and a companion Chrome (MV3) extension posts through the seller's own logged-in sessions — exactly-once via Web Locks leader election, sync tokens, and server-side claims.
  • Binding offers on PayPal: buyer funds are authorized for 48 hours at offer time, captured on seller acceptance, and auto-voided via Cloud Tasks — plus webhook-driven refund and dispute handling.
  • AI listing autofill: Gemini structured-output extraction fills category, size, brand, color, material, and condition from item photos; voice dictation on the listing form.
  • Typesense search with per-market facet schemas and semantic similar-item search via auto-embedded vectors.
  • Bidirectional inventory sync with price mirroring, sold/deleted reconciliation, and fuzzy relist detection.
  • Open Graph link previews for the SPA via a Cloudflare Worker + KV populated from Firestore triggers.
  • 550+ commits in the last 18 months; toolchain modernized end-to-end (Vite 8, Functions v2 on Node 24, React Router 7, zod).

stack: React · TypeScript · Vite · Firebase · Typesense · PayPal · Gemini · Cloud Tasks · Cloudflare Workers · Chrome Extension (MV3)

-> boroboros.com

BETAFLOPS

[LIVE]

A peer-to-peer marketplace for mechanical keyboards. · 2018 – 2022 · Founder, designer, and sole engineer

Solo-built marketplace where enthusiasts buy and sell mechanical keyboards, keycaps, and parts — with integrated payments, chat, search, and moderation.

  • PayPal Marketplaces API integration for orders, payments, and seller onboarding.
  • Built-in buyer–seller chat with image sharing, notifications, and order tracking.
  • Full-text instant search and filtering with Typesense + InstantSearch.js.
  • Automated content moderation using Google Vision.
  • Cost-efficient Firestore schema design with built-in redundancy.
  • Transactional and marketing email via MJML, Amazon SES, and SendGrid.

stack: React · TypeScript · Firebase · Firestore · Cloud Functions · Typesense · Elastic UI · GCP

-> betaflops.com

OPENEXUS PLATFORM

[LIVE]

A modular app & workflow platform. · 2023 – 2025 · Founding engineer (first two employees)

Venture-backed platform where users build and share modular apps. Built the foundations: data layer, plugin compilation, sandboxing, permissions, and integrations.

  • Postgres integration: schema architecture, frontend bindings with caching and optimistic updates.
  • Custom Vite plugins compiling user-written JavaScript and bundling Python for in-browser execution.
  • Secure iframe sandbox for user modules with messaging and data syncing.
  • Framework adapter libraries for React, Svelte, Vue, and Solid.

stack: TypeScript · Solid.js · Postgres · Vite · AWS

-> openexus.com

THIS WEBSITE

[WIP]

A personal archive of code, clothes, and things I've built. · 2026 · Designer & engineer

The site you're looking at — built with Next.js and TypeScript, statically exported, designed as a set of interchangeable themes ranging from album-cover editorial to a Windows-95 desktop.

  • Multiple full design systems over one shared data layer.
  • Static export deployable to any free host.

stack: Next.js · React · TypeScript · CSS Modules

SKILLS

skills/languages

  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • Python
  • Perl
  • Tcl
  • VHDL
  • Verilog
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • x86 Assembly

skills/frameworks-tools

  • React
  • Solid.js
  • Vue
  • Svelte
  • Next.js
  • Vite
  • Redux
  • React Router
  • Firebase
  • Django
  • Cloud Functions
  • Workbox / PWA

skills/infrastructure

  • Google Cloud Platform
  • AWS (Copilot, ECS, Fargate)
  • Docker
  • Cloudflare Workers & KV
  • Google Cloud Tasks

skills/search-commerce

  • Typesense
  • Algolia
  • InstantSearch
  • PayPal APIs
  • Gemini API
  • Chrome Extensions (MV3)

skills/ui-libraries

  • Elastic UI
  • Semantic UI
  • Material UI
  • Bootstrap

skills/other

  • Git
  • OpenReplay
  • PostHog
  • SendGrid
  • MJML
  • Docusaurus
  • Google Vision

HOBBIES

FASHION [TODO: personalize]

Menswear is the hobby that turned into a product — an appreciation for construction, fabric, and silhouette that eventually became Boroboros, a marketplace for it.

  • Interests: TODO: designers, eras, or styles you love
  • Grails: TODO: pieces you're hunting

MUSIC [TODO: personalize]

Always listening to something. This section is a rotating shelf of what's on repeat.

  • On rotation: TODO: current artists / albums
  • All-timers: TODO: the permanent collection

SPORTS [TODO: personalize]

Playing, watching, and arguing about it.

  • Playing: TODO: what you play
  • Watching: TODO: teams / leagues you follow

ANIME [TODO: personalize]

A running watchlist, from seasonal picks to the canon.

  • Currently watching: TODO: this season's list
  • Favorites: TODO: all-time top picks

MECHANICAL KEYBOARDS [TODO: personalize]

The obsession that became Betaflops — switches, keycaps, group buys, and the perfect typing sound.

  • Daily driver: TODO: your current board
  • Collection: TODO: notable boards / switches

CONTACT