Max Ferguson is the founder and CEO of Lumin, a Christchurch-based PDF collaboration platform that he built as a student and has grown to serve 65 million users while leading a distributed team of 50+. A Fulbright scholar with a PhD in Civil Engineering and Computer Science from Stanford, he combines rigorous academic research—building mobile construction robots and AI-driven vision systems—with more than a decade of product delivery experience. Max brings a rare blend of civil engineering domain knowledge and hands-on software entrepreneurship, shipping an initial product in three weeks and scaling it into a global service. He is passionate about software accessibility and embeds inclusive design into Lumin’s product strategy so software works for people regardless of location or status. Under his leadership the company has stayed mission-driven while navigating technical and operational growth across time zones.
11 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Engineering (BE) Civil Engineering, Bachelor of Engineering (BE) Civil Engineering at University of Canterbury
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Civil Engineering & Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Civil Engineering & Computer Science at Stanford University
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.