What I do
Backend and infrastructure-focused software
I build backend and infrastructure-focused software, currently in the financial technology space.
Hey, I'm Ethan.
I’m a software engineer at The Clearing House and a Princeton CS grad building backend, cloud, and AI systems.
I’m drawn to projects where software meets real infrastructure — payments, cloud platforms, distributed systems, and tools that make complicated workflows feel simpler.
Junior SWE @ The Clearing House · Princeton CS · Backend / Cloud / AI · Winston-Salem, NC
At a Glance
A few quick signals
A few quick signals on what I do, what I like building, and where I’m coming from.
What I’m interested in
Reliable systems
Systems that have to be reliable: payments, cloud infrastructure, developer tools, and applied AI.
Where I come from
Princeton CS and varsity football
Princeton CS, varsity football, and a lot of time spent learning how to work hard with a team.
What I like building
Useful tools
Tools that make messy technical workflows feel simpler, faster, and easier to reason about.
Experience
Professional experience
I currently work at The Clearing House, where software reliability matters because the systems support high-value payment infrastructure. Before joining full-time, I interned there twice and worked on backend services, internal tooling, distributed debugging, and service coordination.
The Clearing House — Junior Software Engineer
Jul. 2026 - Present · Winston-Salem, NC
Currently working on software systems in a regulated financial infrastructure environment. I’m still early in the role, so I’m keeping this section honest and high-level for now — more details coming as the work becomes easier to talk about publicly.
The Clearing House — Software Engineering Intern
Jun. 2025 - Aug. 2025 · Winston-Salem, NC
I helped migrate an internal participant-bank configuration tool from a .NET application to a Spring Boot and React platform. The work touched backend service design, REST APIs, access-control workflows, PostgreSQL, and deployment through Tomcat, Maven, Docker, and Jenkins.
- Migrated an internal participant-bank configuration tool from .NET to a Java Spring Boot and React platform.
- Designed backend services for onboarding, configuration data, and access-control workflows.
- Built REST APIs and deployed Spring Boot services using Apache Tomcat, Maven, Docker, and Jenkins.
The Clearing House — Software Engineering Intern
Jun. 2024 - Aug. 2024 · Winston-Salem, NC
I worked closer to the plumbing of distributed systems: TCP/IP communication, IBM MQ coordination, failover behavior, IBM DB2, and debugging tools that surfaced real-time payment state and routing information.
- Engineered a TCP/IP socket-based communication layer using IBM MQ to coordinate service state during startup and failover.
- Built distributed debugging tooling using IBM DB2 and a centralized service registry to surface real-time payment state and routing information.
Selected Projects
Technical projects
Outside of work, I tend to build projects around the same themes I care about professionally: infrastructure, AI, data, and tools that reduce friction.
LecturePilot
An AI study tool that chats with your actual course materials.
LecturePilot lets students upload lecture slides, notes, and recordings, then ask questions against those materials through a source-grounded AI chat interface. The goal was not just to make another chatbot, but to make studying large amounts of course content feel more searchable, organized, and interactive.
- Implemented a RAG pipeline using OpenAI embeddings and retrieval over uploaded course content.
- Built semantic search across slides, notes, and recordings with pgvector-backed retrieval.
- Supported source-grounded answers instead of unconstrained model output.
Next.jsFastAPIPostgreSQLpgvectorOpenAI EmbeddingsRAGTypeScript
Cloud Arbitrage Index
Forecasting when cheap cloud compute might disappear.
Cloud Arbitrage Index is my Princeton senior thesis project. It forecasts interruption risk in cloud spot markets so users can make better cost-aware compute decisions. I built data pipelines around cloud market signals, prioritized exploration with a multi-armed bandit, and trained gradient-boosted models to identify higher-risk instance pools.
- Built ingestion around cloud market signals and AWS spot market state.
- Modeled interruption risk across cloud instance pools.
- Used multi-armed bandit prioritization to explore unstable markets more efficiently.
PythonAWS SDKCloud InfrastructureGradient BoostingForecastingData Pipelines
CloudDock
Cloud infrastructure controls, pulled directly into VS Code.
CloudDock is a VS Code extension I built to manage AWS and Azure virtual machines without constantly jumping between cloud dashboards. It supports creating, starting, stopping, terminating, grouping, and scheduling downtime for cloud instances from inside the editor.
- Integrated AWS and Azure SDKs into one in-editor workflow.
- Supported cross-cloud VM orchestration across major developer actions.
- Added grouping and scheduled downtime workflows to reduce cloud management friction.
TypeScriptNode.jsVS Code Extension APIAWS SDKAzure SDKSupabasePostgreSQL
Signable
An ASL learning platform built with a team, not just a repo.
Signable is a video-based ASL learning platform I led with a 4-person team. We built lesson delivery, structured practice, and progress tracking for 100+ pilot users, with a backend designed around authentication, access control, and reliable deployment.
- Led a 4-person engineering team through product delivery.
- Built a Flask and PostgreSQL backend for lessons, practice, and progress tracking.
- Implemented OAuth and RBAC access control.
FlaskPostgreSQLAWS EC2AWS S3OAuthRBACDocker
Technical Skills
Technical skills
I mostly work across backend systems, cloud infrastructure, full-stack product work, and data/AI tooling.
Programming Languages
PythonJavaCTypeScript
Frameworks and Libraries
FastAPINode.jsReactSpring Boot
Databases
SQLPostgreSQLSupabase
DevOps and Tools
DockerJenkinsAgileJiraGitHub
Cloud
AWSAzureAWS SDKAzure SDK
Education
Princeton University
Bachelor's in Computer Science
Summa Cum Laude · GPA 3.96 · Phi Beta Kappa
I also played varsity football at Princeton, which shaped a lot of how I think about preparation, feedback, and working with a team.
Princeton Varsity Football — Class of 1916 Cup Finalist
Aug. 2022 - May 2026
Contact
Want to connect?
I’m always open to connecting about software engineering, backend systems, cloud infrastructure, fintech, and AI systems.