Jacob Benson

Lead Software Engineer · Auburn, Alabama

I ship web, desktop and iOS software end to end: design, code, tests and releases. At XO Armor Technologies I lead a five-person team across the company's software for clinics: desktop design tools, 3D-printing services and web dashboards. Before coming back to software, I spent most of my career as a carpenter and woodworker. I also build my own products under One Tall Order (opens in a new tab).

Now
Leading the engineering team at XO Armor Technologies, and the release process behind its software.
Apps
Sight Words, live on the App Store. Rainroute and Contingent, invite-only pilots.

Products

Sight Words App Store, (opens in a new tab)

Live on the App Store

An iOS reading app for kids. Flashcards, quizzes and tracing with read-aloud, per-word progress, and custom decks so a class's own word list can be typed in or imported. Built after my son's list came home and no app made it easy to drill his actual words.

SwiftUI · SwiftData + CloudKit · StoreKit 2

Rainroute rainroute.com, (opens in a new tab)

Invite-only

CRM and estimating software for gutter contractors. Contractors sketch the gutter runs and it works out the parts list, priced from their own price list, then carries the job through scheduling, invoicing and a customer portal.

Next.js · TypeScript · Supabase / PostgreSQL · Stripe · Twilio

Contingent contingent.me, (opens in a new tab)

Invite-only

A dead man's switch for your messages. If you stop checking in, the messages you wrote go out to the people you chose, in waves, by email and text, optionally with your location.

Next.js · PostgreSQL · Cloudflare Workers · Twilio · Resend

Building

DaySmith

In final testing

A day planner for focus-challenged people: the day sorted into morning, afternoon, evening and anytime sections, a brain dump, rollover for unfinished tasks, focus sessions and widgets. It checks its own text contrast against WCAG as it runs.

SwiftUI · SwiftData · WidgetKit · Live Activities · HealthKit · StoreKit 2

Sigil

In daily use

A desktop app for running several coding agents side by side, giving each one its own isolated git worktree by default. When a tab's branch has a pull request, the tab shows its PR and CI status. Claude Code hooks tell the app the moment an agent needs me; other sessions fall back to reading the terminal.

Tauri · Rust · React · xterm.js

ActivityCommand

In progress

Venue software for family fun centers: bookings, waivers, RFID entry and staffing.

Next.js · Supabase / PostgreSQL · Stripe · SwiftUI

Experience

  1. Lead Software Engineer at XO Armor Technologies (opens in a new tab)

    Feb 2026 – present
    • Lead a five-person engineering team across XO's software suite (desktop design tools, 3D-printing services and web dashboards) while wearing eight-plus hats: team lead, product-owner liaison, release manager, code reviewer, QA process owner, build and CI, cloud and DNS, design system, documentation and onboarding. Still the team's top code contributor
    • Led the build of a guided 3D editor that takes a clinician from a foot scan to a print-ready custom insole, replacing a Blender-based workflow; built save-and-reopen with full undo history replayed into a Python geometry engine
    • Restarted production releases after a three-month gap: three desktop releases in three weeks, each behind a staging rehearsal, a written QA guide and sign-off from the product owner
    • Reworked the build pipeline so a push to a specific branch publishes a test build to its own update channel, so the team can test any change without touching customer channels
    • Established the team's engineering process: a branch-per-ticket workflow, mandatory code review, Definitions of Ready and Done, and a QA plan for every feature
    • Found and fixed a critical data-integrity defect in the 3D geometry pipeline before it reached clinics
    • Sole owner of the company's cloud and developer tooling (AWS, Azure, Cloudflare and GitHub), including alerting; write the team's Jira epics and tickets, review every pull request and unblock the team

    TypeScript · React · Electron · Three.js · Node.js · Next.js · Prisma · PostgreSQL · Python · Flask · Vitest · Playwright · pytest · AWS · Sentry

  2. Software Engineer at One Tall Order LLC (opens in a new tab)

    Jan 2026 – present
    • Designed, built and shipped Sight Words, an iOS reading app for kids, live on the App Store: SwiftUI, SwiftData with CloudKit sync, and a StoreKit 2 one-time Pro unlock; first commit to App Store release in seven months
    • Built Rainroute, CRM and estimating software for gutter contractors: sketch gutter runs to generate a parts list priced from the contractor's own price list, then schedule, invoice and share a customer portal; in an invite-only pilot
    • Built Contingent, a dead man's switch that sends a user's messages by email and text, optionally with their location, when they miss check-ins; its database tests run against real Postgres
    • Built DaySmith, an iOS day planner for focus-challenged users, now in final testing: SwiftUI, SwiftData with iCloud sync, WidgetKit, Live Activities, HealthKit and StoreKit 2
    • Building ActivityCommand, venue software for family fun centers: bookings, waivers, RFID entry and staffing

    Swift · SwiftUI · SwiftData · CloudKit · StoreKit 2 · Next.js · TypeScript · PostgreSQL · Supabase · Stripe · Twilio · Resend · WebAuthn · Cloudflare Workers

  3. Software Engineer at BC Stone Homes

    Oct 2024 – Jan 2026
    • Helped build the Next.js app that became the main workspace for the sales team and project managers: a simpler front end over HubSpot with every home being built or sold in one place, document signing, and buttons that trigger HubSpot workflows
    • Saved sales and admin staff hours each day and cut errors, because they no longer had to work in HubSpot directly
    • Sole developer of an internal company portal: sign-in, policies and HR documents, the company calendar, news and an employee directory
    • Also sole developer of a ticketing system for raising and tracking requests with vendors

    TypeScript · Next.js · React · Tailwind CSS · HubSpot API · Wrike · Microsoft Entra ID

  4. Development Lead at GameLab

    Oct 2023 – Oct 2024
    • Took over five undocumented repositories built by an outside vendor (Laravel, Flask, Vue.js, shell scripts, AWS), learned them with no handoff, then led development of the software that runs GameLab's gaming pods for military and college players
    • Built Offline Mode, so players could still sign in and play when a facility lost its internet connection
    • Built hardware testing into the app, so technicians test every controller and keyboard in place, without a third-party website
    • Wrote the code controlling each pod's KVM switches, LED lighting, volume and game consoles, and ran code reviews

    PHP · Laravel · Vue.js · Python · Flask · Shell scripting · AWS

Education B.S. Software Engineering, Western Governors University (2024)

Certifications AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (2024) · Google Data Analytics Certificate (2022)

Toolbox

Languages
TypeScript · JavaScript · Python · Swift · Rust · PHP · SQL
Web
React · Next.js · Node.js · Tailwind CSS · shadcn/ui · Vue.js · Laravel · Flask
Desktop & 3D
Electron · Three.js · Tauri
iOS
SwiftUI · SwiftData · CloudKit · StoreKit 2
Data & cloud
PostgreSQL (row-level security) · Prisma · Supabase · SQLite · AWS (S3) · Cloudflare Workers (serverless) · Stripe (webhooks) · Twilio
Testing & CI/CD
Playwright · Vitest · XCTest · Swift Testing

How I work

Own it end to end

Design, code, tests, App Store review, billing, deploys, support pages. On my own products there is no one to hand the next step to, so I've done every one of them.

Test against the real thing

Mocks only prove code agrees with itself. Where a rule lives in the database, my tests build a real Postgres from the same migrations production runs.

Every outage becomes a test

When something breaks, I write down why and add a check that fails if it ever happens again. A lesson only has to be learned once.

New tools, same standards

I've been writing code since QBasic. AI coding agents are part of my toolkit now and they make me faster, but the standard hasn't moved: nothing ships until a test has checked it.

Background

I started programming as a kid: a QBasic trainer for TradeWars 2002, the BBS game everyone dialed into, IRC scripts, and a BBS of my own.

Then I spent most of my career in a tool belt, mostly as a carpenter and woodworker, then as an electrician, a general remodeling contractor doing every trade, and a construction superintendent. That work taught me to plan before cutting, build to code, and stand behind the job after the crew leaves.

I came back to software for good, and I build it the way I built houses.

Contact