Jesse-Peplinski-Resume-OpenAI

Summary

Applied AI engineer, founder/operator, and technical enablement leader with senior-level ownership across 8+ years shipping production software at Equitable. I build with Codex, Claude, OpenAI APIs, RAG, MCP, tool calling, and structured outputs, and my recent zero-to-one work includes Vibe Storefront, Gridiron Rumble, and TrySignalHire. At Hack Upstate, I helped turn Careers in Code into a funded developer-training program by teaching developers, running operations, and building the systems behind 6 cohorts.

Selected AI/Product Work

Gridiron Rumble (March 2026 · ~1 month · Godot, Astro, Claude Code) — Solo-built 2D arcade football game with game engine, Astro marketing site, devlogs, playable web build, and iOS TestFlight release.

How does RAG work? (April 2026 · ~1 hour · Next.js, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Code) — Interactive visualization of the full RAG pipeline. Shows every step live: query term analysis, similarity search, source retrieval with scores, and augmented generation with citations.

How does MCP work? (April 2026 · ~1 hour · Next.js, Vercel AI SDK, Claude Code) — Interactive visualization of the Model Context Protocol pipeline. Tool discovery, AI-driven tool selection, execution with request/response visualization, and response generation.

Drone Detection Dashboard (April 2026 · ~1 hour · Python, FastAPI, WebSockets, Claude Code) — Real-time drone RF signal monitoring and threat assessment dashboard. Simulates ground sensors classifying drones by RF fingerprint and scoring threats.

Experience

Software Engineer July 2017 — Present

Equitable · Syracuse, NY

Generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in business impact by leading the end-to-end redesign of the PCR Rates page, a high-traffic product page with thousands of daily views
Migrated 150 pages from Sitecore to Adobe AEM with zero downtime, collaborating with vendor teams to compress an originally 9-month migration plan into roughly 3 months
Drove the enterprise CMS through 3 major version upgrades (Sitecore 9.1 → 9.3 → 10.2 → 10.3), organizing data migration processes and issue tracking to ensure smooth cutovers
Led the migration of an Angular to vanilla JavaScript Retirement Guide, guiding stakeholders through the architectural change and driving adoption of the new approach
Led chatbot development with Microsoft Bot Framework on Azure, serving as lead engineer and managing the project backlog from prototype through MVP
Served as lead engineer across major customer-facing web initiatives, taking projects from requirements and stakeholder alignment through implementation, production launch, and post-launch reliability

Partner 2017 — Present

Hack Upstate LLC · Syracuse, NY

Directed and taught in Careers in Code, a 6-month intensive coding bootcamp for underserved populations, running day-to-day delivery across 6 cohorts (2019-2024)
Led hands-on workshops and technical enablement sessions, teaching students to build full-stack applications from scratch
Built admissions and operations systems from scratch, automating the pipeline end-to-end using Zapier, Pipefy, and Notion; implemented EOS for goal tracking
Admitted 102 students, graduated 74 (72.5% graduation rate), placed 24 graduates in tech roles
Managed approximately $1.1M in grant-backed program funding across local government and economic development partners
Organized 100+ person hackathons that brought developers, students, sponsors, and local organizations together to advance Central New York’s tech community
Speaker at HackCon V — presented "Getting Your Alumni Involved" to a national audience of student hackathon organizers

Education

B.S. Computer Science, Mathematics Minor 2015 — 2017

SUNY Potsdam

Benjamin F. Bradley Memorial Award — High achievement & outstanding department contribution
Founded Hack Potsdam (grew from 49 to 116 attendees, $10K raised, MLH partnership). President of ACM. GPA: 3.25
Speaker at HackCon V — "Getting Your Alumni Involved," presented to a national audience of student hackathon organizers

Technical Skills

AI & Developer Tools: Codex, Claude Code, OpenAI API, prompt engineering, RAG pipelines, MCP, tool calling, structured outputs
Languages: TypeScript/JavaScript, Node.js, Python, HTML/CSS, Java
Frameworks: React, Next.js (familiar), Astro, Spring Boot, Tailwind CSS
Platforms: Azure DevOps, Git/GitHub, Supabase/Postgres, Vercel, CI/CD pipelines, GraphQL, REST APIs, Docker
Enablement & Training: Workshop delivery, technical documentation, curriculum design, developer community building
Automation: Zapier, Pipefy, Notion, n8n (familiar), Make (familiar)
CMS & Enterprise: Adobe AEM, HTL, Sitecore (6+ years), JSP, Scriban