Andrew Young
Tokyo, Japan | [email protected] | linkedin.com/in/vaelen | github.com/vaelen | vaelen.org
Summary
Software engineering leader with 25+ years of experience building distributed systems and leading high-performing engineering teams. Deep technical background in NLP, machine learning, and distributed systems, combined with a track record of driving organizational change and integrating AI tooling into software development workflows. Experienced in high-scale, low-latency systems serving global traffic, cross-cultural team leadership across the US and Japan, and hands-on contribution at every level from individual contributor to director. Equally effective as a principal-level IC or engineering manager — passionate about solving hard technical problems while mentoring engineers and raising the bar for engineering culture.
Skills
Languages: Go, Java, Python, Ruby, C#, Scala, C/C++, Perl, PHP Platforms & Infrastructure: AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda, ECS), GCP, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Graph Databases AI & ML: NLP, semantic analysis, ML model training pipelines, LLM/AI agent integration, MCP servers, Claude Code, prompt engineering Tools: Git, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CI/CD pipelines, Jira, Confluence Methods: Agile/Scrum, Kanban, OKRs, distributed team leadership, technical roadmapping, systems architecture, cross-cultural management
Experience
Indeed.com — Software Engineering Manager
Tokyo, Japan | February 2020 – Present
Lead a team of 6 engineers directly and direct the work of 3 additional engineers across the US and Japan within the Metadata and Taxonomy organization. The team extracts structured data from resumes and job postings using ML and pattern matching, surfacing it via APIs and data warehouses used to match job seekers with relevant opportunities.
- Architect and operate high-scale services handling millions of requests per day globally, with API latency requirements below 20ms, ensuring high availability across distributed infrastructure
- Led an organization-wide initiative to onboard a graph database, driving the full lifecycle from requirements gathering and vendor evaluation through pricing negotiation, team training, and production deployment across development, QA, and production environments
- Spearheaded team-wide adoption of AI-assisted development using Claude Code and LLM agents, authoring guidelines, prompt libraries, and custom MCP servers that enabled safe, high-quality agentic software development across multiple teams
- Designed and built internal UIs and APIs used by analysts to manage taxonomy graphs, train ML models, and resolve customer data quality issues
- Managed cross-cultural, geographically distributed team spanning the US and Japan, fostering collaboration across time zones and cultures
Infostellar — Principal Engineer → Head of Ground Systems Engineering → Director of Network Operations
Tokyo, Japan | December 2017 – January 2020
Progressed through three roles at a satellite communications startup building a cloud-based platform for real-time communication with low earth orbit and deep space objects.
- As Principal Engineer, led ground station hardware development in Go, managing research, functional testing with real and simulated hardware, and cross-team coordination
- As Head of Ground Systems Engineering, managed a hardware/software team designing and assembling internet-connected ground systems; owned product planning, OKRs, and stakeholder communications
- As Director of Network Operations, oversaw daily operation of the global ground station network, customer and partner relationships, infrastructure management, and division-level planning
MongoDB, Inc. — Technical Services Engineer
Austin, Texas | July 2016 – October 2017
Supported software developers and system administrators with complex MongoDB issues. Served as the North America support team's subject matter expert on sharding and distributed systems, working directly with product management, training colleagues, and producing customer-facing presentations and knowledge base content.
The Boon Group, Inc. — Software Engineer Team Lead
Austin, Texas | May 2015 – July 2016
Led a software engineering team building internal systems for a third-party insurance administrator (C#, SQL Server). Introduced Agile/Scrum practices, continuous integration, staging environments, and structured one-on-ones that measurably improved team velocity and code quality.
Kabam — Sr. Software Engineer
San Francisco Bay Area | May 2013 – April 2015
Worked on distribution infrastructure including payment processing, business intelligence, account management, and customer loyalty across Scala/Play, PHP, Java, and Ruby on Rails stacks. Built RESTful APIs and SDKs for Android, iOS, and Unity3D integrated by internal and external game developers. Traveled to Beijing to provide in-person support to the China development team.
Early Career
| Company | Title | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Crossroads Systems | Sr. Software Engineer (Ruby/Java) | 2012–2013 |
| Spider Strategies | Software Engineer (Java/Spring MVC) | 2011–2012 |
| Texas Mutual Insurance | Sr. Systems Analyst (Java/RPG IV) | 2010–2011 |
| Rackspace Cloud | Sr. Software Engineer (Java/Ruby, REST APIs) | 2008–2009 |
| UT Austin Linguistics Dept. | Research Assistant (NLP/ML) | 2008–2010 |
| ARM | Software Developer (Java) | 2006–2007 |
| IBM | Software Developer (Java/Perl) | 1999–2005 |
Education
M.S., Software Engineering — California State University, Fullerton (2010–2012)
B.A., Linguistics (with honors; thesis: NLP, machine learning, and semantic analysis) — The University of Texas at Austin (2004–2009)