In 20 years of building software, I’ve always focused on finding the work that compounds — emerging platforms, scrappy teams, and bets with outsized returns.
I cut my teeth on the iPhone (before there was an SDK). I’ve worked on big enterprise cloud platforms, while spending countless hours polishing UIs and pixel-perfect animations. I’ve been responsible for high-availability, high-volume data pipelines, and played a direct role in closing millions of dollars of business.
Turning chaos into clarity is where I do my best work.
Experience
2025
StarLifter
CEO
- AI-native BI platform from the founder of ServiceNow. Brought in as CEO after a full GTM reset. Shaped the product positioning, ran customer discovery, and packaged raw technology into a go-to-market story.
2023 - 2025
Contentsquare
Engineering Director
Global Mobile
- Hands-on in the Heap acquisition — due diligence, IP defense, merger agreement review. Led the combined global mobile org post-merger. 45 engineers and managers.
- Reduced ~$5M in churn risk in year one. Worked at-risk accounts directly alongside sales and support to rebuild customer trust post-merger.
- Unified mobile SDK architecture across both product lines. Release quality gates and regression prevention.
2020 - 2023
Heap
Director of Engineering
Data Capture · Mobile · SDKs
- Capture infrastructure at scale: ~2B events/day when joined, ~6B when left. Heap.js running on millions of websites. Owned all SDK products — web, iOS, Android, and connected surfaces.
- Led full mobile SDK rebuild: $2M+ new ARR in year one, fastest-growing revenue segment. Pioneered novel capture mechanisms on iOS. Designed the cross-platform architecture, modularity across iOS and Android that opened up emerging platforms: TVs, in-car systems, point-of-sale.
- Mobile point of contact on the largest accounts — expansion deals, customer webinars, executive-level conversations.
- Invested in customer-facing teams — Support, Success, implementation — and turned mobile from a weakness into a strength.
Selected work:
- Don't Call It a Rewrite: How We Rebooted Heap's Mobile SDKs — Blog post
- Modern Analytics for Mobile Teams — Webinar
- Creating Exceptional Cross-Device Experiences with Advanced Mobile Analytics — Webinar — co-presented with Nathan Dobbie (Contentsquare)
2014 - 2019
ServiceNow
Director of Engineering
Mobile · Platform UI
- Founded ServiceNow’s mobile engineering organization. Product vision, team, architecture. Built Cabrillo, a native/JS bridge that let web-customized apps render with native mobile UI without rewriting. Still in production a decade later.
- Expanded to lead all next-gen UI: Service Portal, Connect, platform modernization. 5 teams, ~45 engineers.
- On stage at Knowledge keynotes and Now Forum annually alongside ServiceNow’s founder and CEO. Helped close the first $1M platform deal through direct customer engagement.
2012 - 2015
Spaceman Labs
Co-Founder
- Co-founded a two-person mobile product studio. Client work to self-fund, original products to ship. Presented at LAUNCH Festival.
- Early iOS community voice — open source (SMPageControl), ~30 posts on iOS internals. Community presence that drove real inbound interest.
2008 - 2012
Mellmo / Roambi
Manager, iOS Development
- Built the core iOS visualizations: SuperList, Elements, Layers. Data visualization and BI for the iPhone — novel interaction design and data display on an emergent platform and underpowered hardware.
- Shipped on iPad launch day at Apple’s request. App pre-installed on Apple Store iPads. iPad App of the Year.
- Featured in Forbes — professional jetski sponsorship that became the company’s best recruiting lever. Customer advisory boards, candidate closes, company ambassador. Leadership beyond the codebase.
2007 - Present
Seventy-Nine Lines
Top Tinkerer
- iOS apps since 2007. Jailbroken iPhones, before the SDK or App Store existed. In the App Store month one.
- PegJump hit #3 Top Free, millions of downloads, still live. Dashbuster started pre-SDK on jailbroken iPhones, shipped on the App Store in month one — one architecture supporting both Blockbuster and Netflix.
2004 - 2007
Helix Charter High School
Helix Charter
High School
Technology Specialist
- Managed 1,000+ Macs, Windows PCs, and Citrix thin terminals across campus
- Architected and maintained campus LAN: physical connectivity, switching, routing
- Administered networked infrastructure: remote imaging, NAS, cross-platform home folders
2002 - 2004
US Air Force
United States
Air Force
Network Technician (Tech Control)
Hill AFB (UT) · Barksdale AFB (LA)
2020 - Present
City of La Mesa Planning Commission
City of La Mesa
Planning Commission
Commissioner
- Elected chair in 2024. Quasi-judicial land use hearings, high-stakes public decision-making. Leadership outside of technology.
Patents
Three patents · full details, links, and more at jerryis.me/resume