Sam Zanca

Senior Software Engineer

Experience

Senior Engineer (Contract)

Jun 2025 – Dec 2025
  • Engineered performant Go APIs, consistent latency <100ms response time across critical services for a high-growth startup.
  • Reduced Docker image build time 180s -> 20s using buildkit and layer caching. Speeding up local dev and CI workflows.
  • Delivered intuitive and performant frontend experiences using React and Next.js
  • Led full-stack development of sleek frontend experiences and robust Go backend APIs
  • Architected efficient async background job processing system using Go channels and worker pools, handling 10K+ concurrent tasks with 99.9% reliability and sub-second processing times.

Senior Engineer

Chainalysis· Remote
Mar 2024 – Jun 2025
  • $60M+ ARR – Took over and improved our second largest React/Next.js app, enhancing maintainability and shipping velocity.
  • -50K lines of legacy code removed - Continuously reducing complexity while delivering new features and increasing reliable testing.
  • Technical Stewardship – Guiding development for teams without dedicated frontend engineers, ensuring efficient feature delivery.
  • Company-wide design system – Contributing code and shaping direction to keep it simple and maintainable.
  • Resolved high-priority client issues – Tackled issues from top clients, improving user experience and eliminating major pain points.
  • Cross-functional Collaboration – working closely with other product/design/engineering teams
  • Best practices – Implemented data fetching and rendering optimizations for high-performance frontend applications.

Software Engineer (Contract)

Bentobox· New York City
Apr 2023 – Dec 2023
  • Built 50+ pixel-perfect UI, high-quality, responsive components from Figma designs using React.
  • Aligned specs across 5+ teams to ensure smooth cross-functional collaboration and on-time feature delivery.
  • Reduced tech debt by 30% by prioritizing maintainable code with a strong focus on simplicity, clarity, and UX.
  • Resolved critical race conditions affecting 10,000+ users, improving stability and preventing bad user experiences.

Full Stack Engineer

Brkfst.io· New York, US
Apr 2021 – Mar 2023
  • Refactored legacy Node.js modules into modular, well‑documented REST APIs, improving maintainability and simplifying future feature development.
  • Built a comprehensive browser automation testing suite with Playwright, reducing manual QA work and catching regressions earlier in the pipeline.
  • Optimized PostgreSQL queries and introduced caching strategies to enhance job performance and API response times.
  • Delivered backend infrastructure enhancements including database optimizations, API rate limiting, and centralized error handling to increase platform reliability.
  • Led migration from a legacy Webpack build system to modern tooling, reducing technical debt and improving developer efficiency through automated performance monitoring.
  • Designed and implemented AWS infrastructure using Terraform, establishing robust CI/CD pipelines that streamlined deployments.

Full Stack Engineer

TXT Group· Milan, Italy
Oct 2019 – Apr 2021
  • Acted as a point of reference/mentor for developers learning: Nodejs, React.js, Redux.js & Typescript.
  • Lead the development of a React/Typescript web control panel for operating Flight Simulators via remotely via tablet for Leonardo SpA.
  • Maintained c# two Xamarin Mobile apps used by ITT Inc in Automotive industry for collecting diagnostic break data transfered over wifi and low power bluetooth.
  • Developed a c# app for collecting and processing flight data in collaboration with IATA Turbulence aware campaign to reduce fuel costs and flight *bumpiness*
  • Developed a c# WPF Simulator for training the proper use of the ADRIAN system.

Skills

All

JavaScriptTypeScriptReactRESTCSSNode.jsHonogRPCPostgreSQLFirebaseLinuxAWSDockerTailwindGleamClaude CodeOpenAIRAGMCP-ServersAI CleanupAi Agents