Jesse-Peplinski-Resume-Vercel

Summary

Applied AI product engineer, founder/operator, and zero-to-one builder with senior-level ownership across 8+ years shipping production software at Equitable. I build agentic product workflows with Codex, Claude, OpenAI APIs, RAG, MCP, tool calling, and structured outputs, and my recent product work includes Vibe Storefront, Gridiron Rumble, and TrySignalHire. At Hack Upstate, I built operational automation systems and helped run Careers in Code across 6 cohorts. I want to build agentic systems that make deploying to Vercel feel like having a seasoned infrastructure engineer on your team.

Selected AI/Product Work

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

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

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.

Drone Detection Dashboard (April 2026 · ~1 hour · Python, FastAPI, WebSockets, Claude Code) — Real-time drone RF signal monitoring and threat assessment dashboard.

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
Led chatbot development with Microsoft Bot Framework on Azure, serving as lead engineer and managing the project backlog from prototype through MVP
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
Shipped the OBP customer portal (React, Java) to help onboard new brokers from outside firms into the organization
Led the migration of an Angular to vanilla JavaScript Retirement Guide, architecting the separation of content and code
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)
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

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

Languages: TypeScript/JavaScript, Node.js, Python, HTML/CSS, Java
AI & LLMs: Codex, Claude Code, OpenAI API, prompt engineering, RAG pipelines, embeddings, vector databases, MCP, tool calling, structured outputs
Frameworks: React, Next.js, Astro, Vercel AI SDK, Spring Boot, Tailwind CSS
Cloud & Infra: Vercel, Supabase/Postgres, Azure DevOps, Git/GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, Docker, REST APIs, GraphQL
Automation: Zapier, Pipefy, Notion, n8n (familiar), Make (familiar)
Enterprise: Adobe AEM, Sitecore, Microsoft Bot Framework, cross-platform integrations
Methods: Agile/Scrum, Kanban, cross-functional team leadership