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Eugene Upston
Senior Software Engineer
Santa Fe, NM · Remote (US) · Open to full-time roles & select engagements
Summary

Senior software engineer focused on agentic AI products and design-led frontend, with 8+ years at venture-backed startups in the US and New Zealand, including Soul Machines, Centrality and Spaceport. I own agent features end to end, from the workflows and data behind them to the design systems and React/Next.js interfaces people use.

Experience
Spaceport
AI agent platform (Side Chat) and IP-licensing protocol (Cultura)
Oct 2024 – Present
Boston, MA · Remote
Senior Full Stack Developer · Side Chat, agentic AI platform · 1,000+ commits in 2026Feb 2026 – Present
  • Built the durable workflow engine on Vercel Workflows, then led its migration to Restate: workflow builder, versioned step runs, fan-out/for-each, cron scheduling and human-in-the-loop approvals.
  • Built services in Canopy, the runtime between agent harnesses (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor) and LLMs: browser sessions, a Functions sandbox, tables, messaging and OAuth; contributed to our MCP server.
  • Led design engineering: the Canopy brand and design-system kit (tokens, Storybook, Chromatic), generative UI, approval UX and a live theme switcher for agent-generated apps.
  • Built real-time delivery: SSE streaming for agent chat and Postgres-to-WebSocket notification fan-out.
  • Designed a Postgres tables service (optimistic concurrency, schema versioning, CSV/XLSX import) with Drizzle migrations.
  • Built agent browser automation on Browserbase and Cloudflare: portal login engine, OTP capture and session recordings.
  • Work on GCP infrastructure as code with Pulumi (GKE, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, monitoring), plus CI gates and Claude API–powered code review.
Senior Full Stack Developer · Cultura IP-licensing protocol & marketplaceOct 2024 – Jan 2026
  • Led development of the Cultura SDK (TypeScript, viem/ethers, TypeChain, GraphQL/The Graph, Vitest), shipping versioned RC and stable releases through devnet and testnet, plus its documentation site.
  • Built the Cultura dApp and subgraph, plus six GitHub Actions pipelines for RC/stable releases and PR end-to-end tests.
  • Built marketplace features on Postgres: role-based access, licensing approval flows, a Printify integration with a mock API service, and a Playwright end-to-end suite.
TypeScriptNode.jsHonoNext.jsPostgresDrizzleRestateStorybookGCPGKEPulumiMCPClaude APIPlaywrightVitest
Bamburai
AI product studio
Apr 2023 – Oct 2024
Bali, Indonesia
Director of TechnologyApr 2023 – Oct 2024
  • Set technical direction and managed the development team across AI, Web3 and web products.
  • Built BrandPro.ai, an AI branding platform generating brand kits with image models (Next.js, Supabase/Postgres, Replicate), plus its product API.
  • Launched a self-serve web-product subscription on Stripe, Webflow and Zapier.
Next.jsTypeScriptSupabasePostgreSQLAWSStripeReplicate
Paragons NFT
Web3 gaming collectible
Jan 2022 – Feb 2023
Auckland, New Zealand
Founder & Technical LeadJan 2022 – Feb 2023
  • Led a team of three developers from concept to launch. Built Solidity contracts (Hardhat), a Node/TypeScript API, Discord bots, a Python/Blender render pipeline on AWS, and an immersive 3D web experience (Next.js, R3F, WebGL).
SolidityHardhatNode.jsNext.jsThree.jsPythonAWS
Centrality (CENNZnet)
Layer-1 blockchain, New Zealand
May 2021 – May 2022
Auckland, New Zealand
Full Stack DeveloperMay 2021 – May 2022
  • Built a Node.js/RabbitMQ relayer bridging CENNZnet and Ethereum, plus Hardhat-tested bridge contracts.
  • Maintained the explorer backend (NestJS, SQL, Redis) and extended the open-source TypeScript SDK.
  • Built DeFi dApps for swaps, liquidity pools and bridging (React, TypeScript); CI/CD with GitHub Actions.
TypeScriptNode.jsRabbitMQNestJSRedisSQLReactDockerJenkins
Non-Fungible Labs
NFT studio (FLUF World)
Sep 2021 – Nov 2021
Auckland, New Zealand
Senior DeveloperSep 2021 – Nov 2021
  • Core developer on a multi-million-dollar NFT launch; built the minting and holder dApps with Next.js and TypeScript.
  • Built the 3D render pipeline on AWS, MongoDB and Blender that generated the collection assets.
Next.jsTypeScriptAWSMongoDBBlenderPython
inMusic
Music technology (Akai, Denon DJ, Numark)
Sep 2020 – May 2021
Auckland, New Zealand
Software Engineer in TestSep 2020 – May 2021
  • Designed a TypeScript/Jest/Docker test framework for a gRPC service; automated tests in Qt/QML, C++ and Python.
  • Tracked CPU, memory and performance metrics with the ELK stack and Vega; maintained Jenkins CI and CMake builds.
TypeScriptgRPCDockerC++Qt/QMLPythonELKJenkins
Soul Machines
AI digital humans
Apr 2018 – Sep 2020
Auckland, New Zealand
Software Pipeline EngineerJun 2019 – Sep 2020
  • Automated the artist pipeline for AI digital humans with Python, Qt, Flask and MongoDB; built batch tools for Maya, Nuke and Agisoft.
  • Built and managed a serverless render farm on AWS (Deadline, EC2 Spot Fleet); deployment tooling with Git and Jenkins; Pytest unit and integration tests.
Technical ArtistApr 2018 – Jun 2019
  • Built text-to-speech voices for enterprise clients, Python TTS tooling and a client-facing web app on GCP.
PythonFlaskMongoDBAWSGCPJenkinsPytest
Skills
AI & Agents
Claude API · MCP · Vercel AI SDK · Agent runtimes & evals · Generative UI · Claude Code · Cursor
Frontend
React · Next.js · TypeScript · Tailwind · Design systems · Storybook · Three.js / R3F · WebGL / GLSL
Backend
Node.js · Hono · NestJS · Restate · gRPC · GraphQL · REST · SSE / WebSockets · Python
Data
PostgreSQL · Drizzle · Supabase · Redis · MongoDB · The Graph
Cloud & DevOps
GCP (GKE, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub) · AWS · Pulumi · Docker · GitHub Actions
Quality & Ops
Vitest · Playwright · Chromatic · OpenTelemetry · Sentry · PostHog · Auth0 / OAuth
Selected independent work
Wurkbox · 2026
Full SaaS build: Next.js, Drizzle, Postgres/Supabase, tRPC, Stripe, Vitest and Playwright.
Tectonic Labs · 2025
Post-quantum (Falcon-512) Ethereum wallet browser extension and app.
Creative & 3D · 2022 – 2025
3D web work for Geist × Harvey AI, Infisical and more.
eupston.com · 2025 – 2026
Portfolio with a raymarched GLSL/R3F scene and a Claude-powered "virtual self" chat.
Open Source & Projects
Deepbeat
Deep-learning model that converts beatboxing into MIDI drums.
Deepbox
Real-time C++ neural-net audio plugin that classifies beatboxes.
This Portfolio
Custom GLSL raymarching orb + AI virtual self.
Education
Grad. Diploma, Audio Engineering
MAINZ Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
2016
BFA, Electronic Arts
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
2013
Also available for
AI & Agentic Engineering
Full-Stack Product Builds
Design Engineering
Creative & 3D Engineering