James Irwin
Staff Software Engineer at GrowthBook
Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJames Irwin is a Staff Software Engineer with 13 years of experience building high-performance infrastructure and scalable education platforms, currently based in Starnberg, Bavaria. He has a track record of stabilizing and re-architecting critical systems at organizations like Khan Academy and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and more recently led infrastructure projects at GrowthBook including a multi-tenant ClickHouse data warehouse and a dedicated licensing server. Comfortable across the full stack, he blends Python, React/Typescript and Terraform expertise with deep database and system-architecture skills honed on large-scale teacher/student-facing products. James also brings uncommon field experience: he founded a nonprofit to deploy computer labs across Tanzania and taught CS in secondary schools, demonstrating an ability to deliver technology in resource-constrained environments. An active open-source contributor, he has improved UX and fixed core issues in popular projects such as GrowthBook and contributed front-end fixes to Khan Academy’s exercise framework. He is focused on applying Silicon Valley engineering practices to mission-driven organizations in Germany or remote roles that advance societal and environmental good.
13 years of coding experience
16 years of employment as a software developer
B.S, Computer Science & Physics (double major), B.S, Computer Science & Physics (double major) at Carnegie Mellon University
Github Skills (16)
javascript10
user-interface10
feature-flags10
feature-engineering10
jquery10
front-end-development10
react10
feature-management10
typescript-types9
documentation9
back-end-development9
typescripts9
typescript9
html9
caching9
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
growthbook/growthbook
Mar 2022 - Mar 2022
Open Source Feature Flags, Experimentation, and Product Analytics
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:220 reviews, 1 commit, 406 PRs in 1 day
Contributions summary:James made contributions that improved the user experience by refining wording, correcting typos, and reorganizing documentation. They also addressed implementation issues by fixing a function name, and they improved the user experience. These commits demonstrate a focus on front-end and back-end code changes, showcasing a range of skills across the development stack. The user's contributions indicate they are actively involved in the codebase.
feature-flagsabtestingstatisticsabtestexperimentation
Khan/khan-exercises
Nov 2012 - Jun 2014
A (deprecated) framework for building exercises to work with Khan Academy.
Role in this project:Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:28 commits, 1 push in 1 year 7 months
Contributions summary:James primarily worked on the front-end aspects of the Khan Academy exercise framework, focusing on bug fixes and feature enhancements. They addressed issues related to caching and the display of out-of-date warnings by adding checks and clearing caches. The user also implemented changes to the assessment mode functionality, including the "skip question" button and ensuring correct behavior in assessments. Their contributions involve modifying JavaScript code related to user interface elements, form handling, and assessment workflows.
khan-academy
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