Weyland Joyner

Senior Software Engineer — Applied AI / Special Projects

Experience

Applied AI & Special Projects

Mercer Street Labs / Moth+Flame · 2023–Present Founder · Consultant · Acting Head of Engineering

  • Designed and shipped AI authoring platform enabling non-technical SMEs to generate VR training content via natural language—adopted across Army, Air Force, Navy, SOCOM
  • Integrated modern LLM APIs into end-to-end multimodal content generation workflows (video, audio, VR specifications)
  • Led distributed skunkworks team (including displaced Ukrainian engineers) at CEO request, effectively acting as head of engineering during organizational transformation
  • Audited legacy systems, decommissioned outdated tooling, rebuilt core engineering workflows
  • Delivered new capabilities under tight timelines working directly with executive leadership outside formal org chart

Cloud Architecture & Delivery Leadership

Cloudreach · 2018–2023 Senior Engineer / Technical Lead

  • Led 7-person team delivering cloud-native systems on AWS/GCP for Fortune 500 and public-sector clients
  • Architected real-time data pipelines consolidating weather, incident, and operational data (BigQuery, streaming infrastructure) for transportation use cases
  • Senior technical interface to C-suite; advised on modernization strategy while maintaining hands-on ownership of core systems

Early-Stage AI Applications

IBM Watson Education (via Langa) · 2015–2018 Software Engineer

  • Built production conversational AI applications using Watson NLP APIs (chat, information extraction) for K-12 education
  • Advised Watson leadership on Node.js/React adoption in Java-centric organization; mentored internal engineers on modern JavaScript practices
  • Led UX and data visualization (React + D3.js) working directly with teachers and administrators
  • Delivered multi-month proof-of-concepts as skunkworks team, presented to IBM executive leadership for productionization

Technology Strategy & Executive Advisory

Blackstone (BXII) · 2019–2021 Technical Advisor

  • Assessed portfolio company technology stacks and led architecture reviews for Blackstone infrastructure leadership
  • Produced roadmaps and written assessments to inform investment and modernization decisions

Operations & Crisis Leadership

Humanitarian Aid Organization (Ukraine) · 2022 Co-Founder / Operations Lead

  • Co-founded and led international aid organization during early Russo-Ukrainian war, coordinating evacuations and humanitarian logistics from active conflict zones
  • Built and operated supply chains across 3–4 continents under wartime constraints

Technical Breadth

Languages: JavaScript/TypeScript, Python; functional programming (Haskell, Lisp) Platforms: AWS, GCP Focus Areas: Applied AI systems, generative workflows, distributed systems, cloud architecture

Education

B.A., English & American Literature — Middlebury College Departmental Humanities Prize (Thesis) · Former journalist