# Matthew R. Bowen ## SUMMARY Backend and distributed-systems engineer with 20 years of experience building reliable, high-throughput infrastructure — much of it in regulated, compliance-heavy environments where correctness and trust are non-negotiable. Led the technical compliance work that made a health platform HIPAA-compliant, helped build the IRS's Direct File tax-filing system, and most recently redesigned Zapier's webhook-processing pipeline (~300 million events/day) with a zero-incident rollout. Deep hands-on expertise in Python, with a track record of flexing between individual contribution and technical leadership depending on what the work demands. ## SELECTED EXPERIENCE ### Zapier **Senior Software Engineer** | *Remote* | July 2024—Present - Led the redesign and in-flight production rollout of Zapier's hook-processing system, replacing a 300-million-event-per-day pipeline without a single incident across a 48-subtask migration; the rollout plan is referenced company-wide as the model for safe, multi-phase deployments. Eliminated data-loss scenarios and converted manual replays to automated recovery - Architected Authentication Guards, an enterprise security primitive addressing top deal-killer gaps (domain filtering, approval workflows, service auths, sharing restrictions); performed product discovery in the absence of a PM, wrote a comprehensive ADR evaluating multiple approaches, and implemented the full backend — database models, feature flags, domain filtering, and REST API - Built Replayer, an incident-response tool that reduced webhook debugging from hours to minutes and added automated impact analysis; described by engineering leadership as "the most impactful internal tool we have" - Designed and coded a Databricks-based ETL system for trigger-subscription observability, enabling enterprise-grade monitoring; established new CI patterns for Databricks testing adopted across the company - Built self-service claim-management APIs consumed by multiple teams, enabling the release of 10,000+ unused claims and reducing ongoing compute costs; documentation praised as a model for the team - Authored team-wide technical guidelines covering architecture principles, async processing patterns, and rollout safety — adopted as part of the team's project-initiation SOP - Rated "Exceptional impact" in all three performance reviews; received an Impact Award for helping engineers across the organization adopt AI tools thoughtfully to increase productivity while maintaining quality ### United States Digital Service **Staff Software Engineer (Digital Service Expert)** | *Washington, DC* | May 2021—July 2024 - Architected and led the client application for the IRS's [Direct File](https://directfile.irs.gov/) program — the U.S. government's first web-based system for filing taxes directly with the IRS — in TypeScript, React, and Scala; was the subject-matter expert on the Scala FactGraph (a custom graph database computing tax facts), encoded tax law in its DSL, and grew into the engineering lead for ~12 engineers through a successful public launch - Developed technical guidance and a [Python data pipeline](https://github.com/usds/erap/tree/main/arp_pipeline) (Luigi, Postgres/PostGIS) for fact-specific income proxies for emergency rental assistance, reducing applicant burden while protecting program integrity; the approach was adopted by other federal agencies for their own benefits programs - Built Python/Pandas/GeoPandas data-pipeline tools, created the automated-test strategy, and helped plan the production deployment for the [Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool](https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/), which directs billions of dollars in federal funding toward disadvantaged communities - Built a Python retailer-data pipeline in days during the 2022 infant formula crisis and used it to advise the White House Domestic Policy Council and Staff Secretary on the government's response - Advised FNS/WIC on a human-centered, technically sound path forward for a beneficiary-focused evolution of the WIC Management Information System ### Truth Initiative **Lead Software Engineer** | *Washington, DC* | February 2014—May 2021 - Led the port of [BecomeAnEX.org](https://www.becomeanex.org/), a clinically-based tobacco-cessation program serving hundreds of thousands of users, from a proprietary PHP framework to Django/Python; led the HIPAA-compliance work and the migration from single-server colo hosting to cloud infrastructure - Ran the technical security-practices group in a HIPAA-regulated environment — wrote policies, implemented controls, and set SDLC and security-review standards - Designed APIs and led scaling for ubiquitxt, an SMS-based cessation tool, increasing capacity by two orders of magnitude to handle major media events; built data analysis tools in Jupyter and Pandas to understand user behavior - Set technical direction for the team: guided architecture decisions, established criteria for evaluating open-source packages, and fostered a culture of written documentation ### U.S. News & World Report **Director of Web Technology** | *Washington, DC* | August 2011—February 2014 - Supervised nine developers building and maintaining usnews.com, serving millions of monthly visitors, using Python (Pylons, Pyramid), JavaScript, and Postgres - Led a seven-figure CMS replacement and provided technical direction on Best Colleges and Best Hospitals ### Stratacomm **Director of Technology Services** | *Washington, DC* | July 2008—August 2011 - Developed web applications using Python (Django, Plone), JavaScript, and MySQL; managed the web team and all technical project delivery ### National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) **Webmaster** | *Washington, DC* | October 2006—February 2008 - Developed interactive web components using Python (Plone), XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript ## EDUCATION ### University of Maryland at College Park 2001—2005 - Bachelor of Arts: English (Honors) - Bachelor of Arts: Economics