Brenden Smith

Engineering Leadership & Experience

Brenden Smith’s experience leading engineering teams, modernizing platforms, and delivering software across education, fintech, and enterprise technology.

Executive Summary

Software engineering leader with a record of building high-performing teams, modernizing complex platforms, and improving delivery, reliability, and customer outcomes across education, fintech, property technology, insurance, and consulting. Brenden combines executive planning and budget ownership with hands-on technical depth in modern web, cloud, data, DevOps, security, and AI-assisted engineering. Kansas City, Missouri

Leadership Experience

Senior Software Development Manager

ETS / PSI Services

July 2023–Present

Lead engineering, quality, and product delivery for high-volume education and assessment platforms while developing the next layer of engineering management.

  • Transitioned from 15 direct reports to leadership through two promoted managers while retaining seven direct reports.
  • Hired 11 team members across engineering, quality assurance, and product ownership.
  • Consolidated 30 legacy applications into a platform architecture with three APIs and 16 front ends.
  • Delivered item-banking V2, reducing common load times from 5–15 seconds to under one second.
  • Reduced the primary codebase from approximately 3.8 million lines to 300,000 lines.
  • Reduced the weekly support queue from 200–250 requests to generally 15 or fewer.
  • Improved delivery efficiency by more than 20% and reduced automated regression checks from hours to minutes.
  • Led the application workstream for a six-month Azure migration without client disruption.
  • Trained dozens of colleagues in AI-assisted engineering and built reporting, forecasting, and support-analysis tools.
  • Participated in security audits and FedRAMP readiness activities.

Chief Technology Officer

Finotta

2021–2022

Owned technology strategy, engineering execution, security readiness, executive partnerships, board planning, fundraising support, and an approximately $2 million budget for a fintech startup.

  • Built and launched the fintech MVP in roughly six months, ultimately serving more than 100,000 users.
  • The first paying-bank launch generated more than 1,000 deposit accounts in its first week.
  • Hired 10 of the company’s 12 team members and established the engineering organization.
  • Led SOC 2 Type I readiness and completion and prepared the organization for Type II.
  • Managed executive partnerships and board-level technology planning.
  • Contributed to a $5 million fundraising effort.

Lead Full Stack Developer

Simplifyy

2020–2021

Led a seven-person product engineering team building property-management experiences in React and React Native.

  • Mentored three junior developers while leading delivery across web and mobile applications.
  • Built property-management workflows for leasing, document signing, and operational reporting.
  • Automated manual leasing and reporting processes to improve speed and consistency.

Contract Engineering Experience

Senior Software Engineer

Mylo

June 2019–February 2020

Delivered full-stack software for an insurance technology platform.

    Senior Software Engineer

    Burns & McDonnell

    March–June 2019

    Built and supported enterprise software for engineering and construction operations.

      Lead Full Stack Developer

      SelectQuote

      November 2018–March 2019

      Led full-stack delivery for insurance technology initiatives.

        DevOps / Software Engineer

        Shamrock

        May–November 2018

        Combined software engineering with delivery automation and operational enablement.

          Earlier Experience

          Senior Engineer / Architect & Scrum Master

          Unity World Headquarters

          September 2016–May 2018

          Combined solution architecture, senior engineering, and Scrum leadership for enterprise initiatives.

            Software Engineer

            RiskAnalytics

            July 2015–September 2016

            Developed software and data solutions for risk-management products.

              Data Integration Specialist / Developer

              K12ITC

              July 2012–July 2015

              Built data integrations and software supporting K–12 technology operations.

                Consulting & Teaching

                Owner & CEO

                Swansmith LLC

                2012–Present

                Founded and operate a software consulting business that has served approximately 60 clients.

                • Delivered software and technical consulting across a broad client portfolio.
                • Mentored more than 20 engineers and technology professionals.

                Contract Boot Camp Instructor

                University of Kansas

                2018

                Taught a software development boot camp of approximately 30 students; every student passed.

                  Open Source

                  Grin++ Wallet UI

                  React / Electron

                  Contributed to the open-source Grin++ wallet interface and helped identify a critical vulnerability in the Grin ecosystem.

                    Education

                    Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

                    University of Missouri–Columbia

                    2012

                    Minors in Business and Information Technology.

                      Technology & Leadership

                      Leadership

                      Engineering Management, Team Building, Hiring, Mentoring, Technical Strategy, Executive Planning, Budget Ownership, Agile Delivery

                      Application Development

                      React, React Native, TypeScript, C# / .NET, Node.js, Python, Java, C / C++

                      Cloud, Data & Delivery

                      AWS, Azure, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Docker, Jenkins, Git, Jira

                      Quality, Security & AI

                      Automated Testing, SOC 2, FedRAMP Readiness, Codex, Claude, GitHub Copilot, AI-Assisted Engineering