Staz Christodoulakis
Senior Software Engineer with 8+ years building high-performance, data-intensive web applications — React, TypeScript, and modern frontend architecture with a systems, performance, and developer-tooling focus. Strong at designing scalable client-server architectures, optimizing data access patterns, and building complex interfaces over large datasets.
Mountain View, CA · staz.christo@gmail.com · github.com/stazcp · linkedin.com/in/stazchristo
Core Skills
- Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript (ES6+), Python
- Frontend: React, Next.js, SPA architecture, accessibility (ARIA, semantic HTML)
- Data & APIs: GraphQL, Apollo Client, REST, schema collaboration, typed code generation
- Systems & Architecture: client-server orchestration, normalized data graphs, caching strategies
- Performance: large-dataset rendering, query optimization, batching, profiling
- Testing & Quality: Jest, React Testing Library, Cypress, CI/CD, code reviews
- AI: browser/on-device LLMs, RAG, agents, prompt design (AI Ambassador at dv01)
Lightning.ai — Frontend Engineer (May 2026 – Present)
- Building full-stack AI systems end to end — from the model-facing backend to the user-facing frontend, primarily in TypeScript and React.
dv01 (Fitch Solutions) — Senior Frontend Engineer / Technical Lead (Jan 2022 – Feb 2026)
- Led multi-quarter frontend architecture initiatives for an enterprise financial analytics platform serving institutional clients.
- Designed scalable client-server data-orchestration patterns that prevent NxM query amplification and keep performance predictable under large dataset fan-out.
- Modeled large hierarchical financial datasets (100k+ records) with normalized client-side data graphs for O(1) access and predictable rendering.
- Cut critical page-load time 68% (3.5s → 1.1s) through architectural refactoring, data-fetch orchestration, and render-path optimization.
- Implemented multi-layer caching that reduced network requests from 13 to 2 per interaction.
- Introduced typed GraphQL code generation, strengthening API contracts and reducing production defects.
- Led technical design reviews and mentored junior and mid-level engineers into promotions; helped shape the hiring process to extract quality candidates.
- Selected as Product Engineering AI Ambassador. Served week-long PEOD (Product Engineer On Duty) rotations, solving novel urgent bugs and time-sensitive customer requests — often delivering fixes within 24 hours.
breathing.ai — Frontend Engineer (2021 – 2022)
- Partnered directly with the CEO on early product architecture and shipped experimental user-facing experiences.
- Built a React + TypeScript Chrome extension with ML-driven biodata feedback: live webcam video streamed to AWS, processed by a machine-learning Lambda over S3, returning the user's breathing rate and heart rate.
- Designed a data layer wired to Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager; led the team on analytics configuration and completed a GTM course.
- Hired, mentored, and led engineers and international contractors.
Freelance Web Developer / Consultant (2018 – 2022)
- Built responsive web apps in JavaScript, WordPress, and React; advised founders on scalable frontend architecture.
- Consulted for a government organization building a React/TypeScript web app — not legally allowed to touch the code, so taught staff over video calls and helped them build and deploy a feature themselves.
- Consulted startups on React and TypeScript best practices, improving maintainability and performance; also partnered with a designer/WordPress specialist while focusing on custom components and standout projects.
Military Service — Greek Special Forces, Commando Paratrooper (2014 – 2015)
Staz served as a Commando Paratrooper (and Paratrooper Sniper) in the Greek Special Forces, the elite unit of the Greek army.
- Led troops through physical and weapons training to become elite soldiers and carried out missions.
- Received a first-class award during radio-communications training.
- Trained side-by-side with elite soldiers, developing mental and physical toughness and problem-solving under pressure.
Education
- BSc Computer Science — University of Hertfordshire (2011 – 2014)
- MIT Certificate — "Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy" (2018)
- Computer Science Intern — Athens Macedonian News Agency (APE-MPE) (2013 – 2014): supported internal enterprise systems and infrastructure for national news distribution; trained on company software and helped train staff.
Interests
Distributed systems, blockchain infrastructure, developer tooling, and data-intensive UI architectures.