James Armstead
Chief Technology Officer at Basis Theory
Urbandale, Iowa, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJames Armstead is a experienced technology leader and product-focused CTO with 14 years of delivering customer-centric software across startups and enterprise environments. Currently CTO at Basis Theory after progressing through VP and Head of Product roles there, he blends hands-on engineering, product strategy, and organizational coaching to scale teams and platforms. He has a track record of launching APIs, cloud delivery practices, and high-quality test-driven systems—helping companies like Dwolla, ADT, Allstate, and Principal modernize delivery and accelerate time-to-value. As a founder and consultant, he’s built niche products from mobile apps to industry-specific management tools and moved paper workflows to digital systems that measurably reduced operational overhead. Based in Urbandale, Iowa, James pairs practical engineering chops (React, Node, TDD) with a talent for restructuring product organizations and embedding lean, customer-first practices. Colleagues would note he quietly balances big-picture strategy with occasional playful side projects like Fantasy Cyclocross and Invoice Ivy, showing an entrepreneurial curiosity beyond the org chart.
14 years of coding experience
20 years of employment as a software developer
Computer Science, Computer Science at Central College
Stackoverflow
398reputation
36kreached
2answers
13questions
Github Skills (102)
react-wrapper10
theory9
measurement-protocol9
jquery9
react-component9
credit-card9
browser9
thin9
payment-integration9
bdd9
payment9
mapper9
database9
testing9
test-framework9
Programming languages (11)
Github contributions (5)
armsteadj1/react-plastic
Jul 2017 - Jun 2018
Scalable react display for a credit card using only the css from jessepollak's Card (https://github.com/jessepollak/card).
Contributions:2 releases, 17 commits, 1 PR in 11 months
scalablereactcreditcsscredit-card
armsteadj1/distrest
May 2017 - Mar 2023
Contributions:12 pushes, 1 branch, 3 issues in 5 years 11 months
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