Richard "Rich" Nelson

Engineering leader with ~11 years in software and ~9 leading teams (up to 3 teams / 16 reports, including managing managers). A consistent thread runs through every role: machine learning, growth and experimentation, and data-intensive product engineering — across media (HBO, NYT, MLB, Spotify), fintech, e-commerce, ads (Amazon), and marketplace support automation (DoorDash).

Currently an applied-AI leader: personally builds and ships agentic LLM systems — including an autonomous ticket-to-PR pipeline built from 13 composable Claude Code skills — and runs a cross-team AI-adoption program. Management philosophy: a great EM optimizes for growing their people and works themselves out of a job.

Employment

• DoorDash: 10-engineer team owning AI support automation and DashPass growth across DoorDash and Wolt. Built ticket-to-pr, an autonomous bug-fixing system (labeled ticket → verified, reviewed PR, no human in the loop, typical cost $5–10 per fix). Founded and leads ACE, a Director-sponsored AI-adoption working group.
• Amazon: two teams on ads data pipelines processing 10B+ events/day; cut incoming support tickets >15% with internal GenAI experimentation.
• Spotify: shipped Podcast Comments and Polls (engagement +20% YoY); user acquisition +12%; monolith→services (time-to-market +33%); localization to 30+ languages.
• MLB: stood the ML department up from zero (3 teams incl. EMs); first personalization/recommendation systems (Week-1 retention +18%); CV and predictive analytics on national broadcasts.
• MaxMyInterest: head of engineering for a fintech moving $5B+/month; password-only auth → full MFA.
• Vroom: company's first front-line EM (3 teams / 16 reports); ML inventory pricing (+12% margin); test coverage 30%→80% in ~3 months.

Selected Public Work & Press

• "Make Donald Drumpf Again" for HBO's Last Week Tonight (2016) — microsite + Chrome extension; 1M+ views in 24 hours; covered by the Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Beast.
• #GiveAShit for WaterAid (2016 Webby nominee) — iOS emoji-builder app; 230M+ media impressions across 53 countries.
• HBO's GameOfThrones.com — lead developer during the run-up to season six.
• Burberry Festive Photobooth — in-store multipeer iOS capture experience at the Regent Street flagship; covered in The Telegraph.
• Open Source Selfie Stick — iOS multipeer camera remote, MPL 2.0.

Education

• Georgia Institute of Technology — M.S., Computer Science (2020), completed while working full-time; graduate TA for Reinforcement Learning, 3 semesters.
• University of Pennsylvania — B.A., American History (2007).
• App Academy (2015) · Certified ScrumMaster