R/HERNANDEZ · PLATFORM ENGINEER
STATUS: ENGAGED · CATHOLICVOTE · PLATFORM REBUILD · 2026

Platforms
that ship.
Vendors that don't.

Lead software engineer. Sole internal engineer at a 45-person national nonprofit, leading a flagship platform rebuild and replacing a $540K/year outsourced vendor with self-hosted systems running at ~$18K. Full delivery lifecycle — architecture, DevOps, integrations, production operations.

// ROLE
Lead Software Engineer
// FOCUS
Platform · Infra · Integrations
// STACK
TS · Next · AWS · Terraform
// LOCATION
Remote · United States
/01/ SELECTED WORK
FOUR DOSSIERS · 2024 — PRESENT
DOSSIER /01

Zeale v2 — flagship platform rebuild

CatholicVote
2025 — Present
Platform Lead
// SUMMARY
Architecting and rebuilding the Zeale platform — CatholicVote's flagship Catholic news and prayer property — end-to-end on Next.js 15 and Payload CMS v3 with a custom NextAuth v5 adapter. Owning content modeling, API contracts, rendering strategy, caching, and the full delivery lifecycle as the sole internal engineer, with contractor work coordinated against the technical standards I set.
PLATFORM TOPOLOGY [ next.js 15 ] → [ payload v3 ] → [ postgres ] │ │ ▼ ▼ [ R2 cdn ] [ meilisearch ] SOLE OWNER · ARCH · API · CACHE · DELIVERY
// ROLE
SOLE
OWNER
// STACK
Next.js 15 Payload v3 NextAuth v5 Postgres R2 Meilisearch
DOSSIER /02

Vendor → in-house infrastructure

CatholicVote
2025 — 2026
Sole Engineer
// SUMMARY
Reverse-engineered the outgoing vendor's full stack — VMware, Docker Swarm, Traefik, NFS, MinIO, Redis, Postgres — and designed a Terraform-based replacement on Hetzner and Netcup from scratch. Architected zero-downtime migration of production WordPress properties (catholicvote.org, votocatolico.org) including 300GB+ data transfers and DNS cutover.
ANNUAL PLATFORM COST VENDOR ERA ████████████████████████████ ~$540,000 IN-HOUSE █ ~$18,000 ──────────────────────────────────────────────── DELTA ~$520K / yr saved single engineer · no consulting
// COST DELTA
~$520K
/ YEAR
// STACK
Terraform Hetzner Netcup Coolify Docker Nginx
DOSSIER /03

Greenfield rebuild — 3M-pageview news platform

LifeSiteNews
2024 — 2025
Senior Engineer
// SUMMARY
Led the rebuild from legacy WordPress to Next.js 15 + Strapi v5 headless architecture, paired with a junior developer on a 4-person engineering team. Designed and executed zero-downtime migration of 100K+ articles, media assets, and taxonomy via custom Dockerized ETL pipelines. Built an incremental sync system that reduced ongoing content update time by 90%.
MIGRATION RUN [ wordpress ] ═══════════ ETL ═══════════▶ [ next + strapi ] │ │ └──── 100K+ articles · media · taxonomy ───────┘ SYNC TIME ▼ −90% vs prior pipeline DOWNTIME ▼ ZERO live cutover
// MIGRATED
100K+
ARTICLES
// STACK
Next.js 15 Strapi v5 Docker ETL SSR / ISR Redis
DOSSIER /04

Donation & subscription event pipeline

CatholicVote
2026
Architect
// SUMMARY
Built event-driven ingestion across WinRed, Revv, and RaiseDonors using AWS Lambda, SQS with dead-letter queues, DynamoDB, and HubSpot APIs. Designed for idempotent processing with guaranteed delivery and replay on failure, plus the supporting HubSpot data model and automation for recurring gifts, cancellations, and the full supporter lifecycle.
EVENT INGESTION TOPOLOGY [ winred ]──┐ [ revv ]──┼──▶ [ lambda ] ──▶ [ sqs ] ──┬──▶ [ dynamodb ] [ raised. ]──┘ ├──▶ [ hubspot ] └──▶ [ dlq → replay ] IDEMPOTENT · GUARANTEED DELIVERY · REPLAYABLE
// PROPERTY
FAULT
TOLERANT
// STACK
AWS Lambda SQS · DLQ DynamoDB HubSpot Webhooks Node.js
/02/ CAPABILITIES
PRODUCTION-FLUENT · ACTIVE USE
Languages TypeScript (primary) · JavaScript (ES2022+) · Python (scripting, data, ML coursework)
Frontend Next.js 15 (App Router, RSC) · React (hooks, server components) · Tailwind CSS · SSR / ISR / streaming
Backend & CMS Node.js (Express, custom adapters) · Payload CMS v3 (NextAuth v5 adapter) · Strapi v5 · REST · webhooks · event-driven architectures
Infrastructure & DevOps Terraform (IaC end-to-end) · AWS (Lambda, SQS, DLQ) · Hetzner / Netcup / Coolify · Docker · Nginx · GitHub Actions · Linux
Data & Integrations PostgreSQL · DynamoDB · Redis · Meilisearch · HubSpot CRM (custom objects, automation) · WinRed · Revv · RaiseDonors · custom ETL
Analytics & Testing GA4 · PostHog · Jest · Vitest · custom event tracking design
/03/ LOG
SELECTED ROLES · REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL
▶2025-12 — PRESENT
    [ CURRENT ]

Lead Software Engineer — Platform & Infrastructure

/ CatholicVote

Sole internal engineer at a 45-person national nonprofit. Leading the Zeale v2 rebuild and full vendor-to-in-house infrastructure transition — architecture, DevOps, CRM integrations, analytics, and production operations across Next.js, Node.js, AWS, and Terraform.

·2024-11 — 2025-08

Senior Software Engineer

/ LifeSiteNews

On a 4-person engineering team supporting a news platform with 3M+ monthly pageviews. Led the new-stack greenfield rebuild paired with a junior developer while two engineers maintained legacy WordPress. Designed RBAC, donation flows, petitions, and crowdfunding features.

·2021-01 — 2023-09

Software Engineer

/ Tata Consultancy Services

Consulting engagement delivering features for ManpowerGroup's Bullhorn-based applicant tracking platform. Built and maintained Angular features across the codebase, expanded test coverage to 70%+ using Jest, and mentored junior developers on testing and code review practices.

/04/ INDEPENDENT
SOLO BUILDS · PLANNED RELEASES
// SOLO PRODUCT IN DEV

SuiteSeat

An independent booking platform I'm building solo — full product ownership from architecture through marketing and launch.

// MOBILE · iOS & ANDROID NEAR LAUNCH

Regina Angelorum

A Catholic press mobile app for iOS and Android, contracted and built end-to-end. Launching shortly.

// OPEN SOURCE Q2 2026

Liturgical Calendar API

A free, well-documented API for the liturgical calendar — built to be the obvious choice for any developer working on Catholic apps.

// OPEN SOURCE Q3 2026

Parish Starter Kit

A drop-in Next.js starter for parishes — Mass times, bulletins, donations — addressing a real gap I keep encountering in volunteer work.

/05/ ABOUT
OPERATOR PROFILE

I'm an engineer who likes owning the whole thing — from Terraform plans to API contracts to the small details of how a page loads. The work I'm proudest of tends to be invisible: migrations nobody noticed, vendors quietly retired, pipelines that just keep running.

Most of my recent work sits at the intersection of faith and software — building tools for Catholic organizations that have historically been underserved by good engineering. It's a niche I keep choosing because the problems are real and the audiences are loyal.

Outside paid work, I do volunteer development for parishes and have taught coding to young adults. I hold an MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and a BS in Software Development from WGU.

// BASED
Remote · United States
// EDUCATION
MS CS, Georgia Tech (3.9)
BS SD, WGU
// NICHE
Faith-tech & nonprofit infra
// AVAILABLE
Open to senior & lead conversations
// STYLE
Direct, pragmatic, ship-oriented