I’m a senior software engineer, architect, and engineering leader with decades of experience building products from prototype through production — and leading the teams that ship them.

My background spans internet infrastructure, SaaS, ad tech, mobile, fleet operations, AI agents, automation, and the occasional machine that moves, flashes, sings, prints, scans, or otherwise escapes the browser.

I’m happiest at the intersection of software architecture, product thinking, and hands-on implementation: finding the important problem, simplifying it, and shipping something useful.

Currently interested in: senior/staff engineering, architecture, CTO/VP/Director-level engineering leadership, and ambitious product work where experienced technical judgment still matters.

A text-grid web renderer for AI agents. Instead of pushing screenshots through vision models, TextWeb runs a real Chromium browser and turns rendered pages into compact structured text while preserving spatial layout and annotating interactive elements.

It supports CLI use, Node.js, HTTP, MCP, function calling, LangChain, CrewAI, persistent browser sessions, ATS workflows, and interactive browser control. Published on npm and used well beyond my own projects.

A venue operating system covering the full inquiry → booking → contract → production → ticketing → settlement lifecycle.

Built as an API-first, multi-tenant application with PHP 8, MySQL, native Web Components, WebAuthn/passkeys, background jobs, CRM, contracts/e-signature, event syndication, marketing workflows, notifications, reporting, and operational tooling — without requiring a frontend build pipeline.

A modular, API-first operating-system foundation for service businesses: reusable kernel, capability packages, pluggable MySQL/Postgres/SQLite connectors, tenant isolation, realtime WebSocket events, composable solution manifests, authentication/authorization, and a dynamic application runtime.

The idea is simple: one solid business platform, many vertical products.

A browser-native visual workbench for modeling and executing operational AI workflows. It includes typed graph semantics, execution planning, dependency analysis, retries, cancellation, runtime traces, schema migrations, provider integration, and a framework-free Web Component UI.

A deterministic artist intelligence system that aggregates and normalizes data from Spotify, Last.fm, MusicBrainz, Wikipedia/Wikidata, Reddit, Bandcamp, Bandsintown, and other sources to produce booking-oriented artist reports.

A small DOM-native message bus for Web Components and micro-frontends. Loosely coupled browser communication, no framework and no build step required.

• CTO / hands-on architect: built and automated operational software for a transportation company, including scheduling, dispatch, GPS/telematics integrations, driver workflows, CRM, maintenance, invoicing, and customer operations.
• Senior engineering management: led rich-media and mobile engineering teams at Conversant/Mediaplex, while continuing to architect and ship production systems.
• Web architecture: helped build SaaS and browser applications at companies including Mindjet, Food.com, Slip.Net, and others going back to the commercial web’s formative years.
• Technical leadership: managed teams of 20+ while remaining comfortable dropping into architecture, debugging, infrastructure, APIs, databases, frontend code, or whatever else is blocking delivery.
• Builder by default: software is only one medium. I also build hardware, 3D printers/scanners, robotics projects, audio tools, event-tech systems, and other things that connect bits to atoms.

Simple systems over fashionable complexity
Working software over architecture theater
Browser-native capabilities where they make sense
Automation that removes real operational pain
AI as a tool, not decorative seasoning
Products that connect software to the physical world
Teams that understand the business problem, not just the ticket

Also familiar with: distributed systems, REST APIs, Web Components, WebSockets/SSE, mobile SDKs, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, authentication/identity, WebGPU/WebLLM, embedded/physical computing, audio systems, and production operations.

My GitHub is a workshop, not a showroom. It contains experiments, prototypes, games, visualization projects, browser hacks, hardware work, and the archaeological layers of several generations of web development.

I like learning by building things. Some projects became products; some answered one question and were done; some should probably be wearing a little museum placard by now.

If you’re evaluating my current work, start with the projects above rather than the alphabetical repository list. 🙂

• Web: https://cdr2.com
• Email: cdr@cdr2.com
• GitHub: https://github.com/chrisrobison