
About Me

Work Experience
Oct 2022 - Aug 2024
Built platform infrastructure from the ground up and led AI R&D.

Head of Platform Engineering & AI
I led a team that developed platform infrastructure and services that supported our developers and our suite of production mobile applications. All services were delivered via robust infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD infrastructure that follow DevOps best practices. My role involved design, architecture, and implementation as well ensuring the efficiency, scalability, and reliability of our platforms. I also led our Labs R&D initiatives that explored bleeding edge technology, including AI, and developed ways to effectively leverage them in our products and inside the business.

Nov 2013 - Sep 2022
Led RSA Labs in building and delivering innovative new products.

Head of RSA Labs
Mar 2022 - Sep 2022
Led the RSA Labs development team which focused on innovation and new product development within RSA. My team transformed ideas into prototypes and then evolved those prototypes into enterprise-grade products. During this time we delivered a state-of-art network analysis tool that helped enterprises better understand what's happening inside their networks and prioritize their security efforts.
Sr. Principal Software Engineer, RSA Labs
Nov 2017 - Mar 2022
Senior developer and technical lead for RSA Labs. My work varied from research endeavors in areas such as blockchain and decentralized identity, to transforming research and ideas into prototypes, and finally to leading the development and deployment of production-ready serverless applications. I helped lead the development and launch of a new third-party vendor risk product that earned millions of dollars in revenue and simultaneously transformed how the engineering organization built cloud-native products.
Principal Software Engineer, SecurID
Nov 2013 - Nov 2017
Worked on next-gen enterprise authentication software, including both server-side code and mobile, with a focus on Android. Over the course of one year I overhauled the Android app internals and reduced the bug count by 90%.

Apr 2012 - Nov 2013
Founded Tech Residents, a hiring platform for software developers.

Co-Founder
Co-founded Tech Residents and launched an online hiring platform targeted at disrupting the software recruiting industry. Our platform allowed software developers to showcase their technical and communication skills to employers via recorded chats. I was responsible for all aspects of the web application including development on the full stack from the RDBMS up to the UI, as well as business/product strategy. Technical highlights included the design and implementation of a RESTful API, backend Python web services, and frontend asynchronous JavaScript components. Source code is available on GitHub.

Jun 2007 - Mar 2012
Learned how to build secure, reliable software.

Software Engineer
Developer for the Consumer Authentication Group where I created enterprise applications for Windows, Mac, and Android. Primary responsibilities included development of the flagship SecurID software token product line. Responsibilities also extended to threat modeling a complex manufacturing infrastructure, analyzing discovered security gaps, and providing recommendations to improve the security posture of the system.
Recommendations
CTO at Appex • Managed Brian directly

Brian is a uniquely talented technologist and an even better colleague. He and I first collaborated on a decentralized identity project while he was leading the Labs team at RSA, and he was my first call when I needed someone to build out and lead a platform team. He's creative and effective in how he solves problems, and has a natural ability to organize and lead his teams to real results. I cannot recommend him strongly enough.
Senior Principal Engineer at RSA NetWitness • Reported directly to Brian

Brian is a fantastic manager and a skilled engineer who is able to take large complex problems and break them down into actionable steps. Under his leadership at RSA Labs our team was able to deliver a number of patented technologies and production ready applications.
Full Stack Senior Software Engineer • Reported directly to Brian

I have had the privilege of working closely with Brian in labs, where he has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership, technical expertise and commitment to developing great software solutions. Throughout our collaboration, I certainly learned a lot from Brian, in both technical and managerial domains.
Skills
Reels
Reels were a core idea of Tech Residents, a startup I co-founded back in 2012. Reels are short audio clips that allowed developers to showcase their passion, personality, technical skills, and communication abilities, giving employers a unique way to evaluate candidates.
Although Tech Residents may be gone, the importance of effective communication remains. This section is a small time capsule of the Tech Residents project and a nod to the power of clear, engaging technical storytelling.

Highlight Reels
How I Cut Our $2500/month AWS Bill by 99%
War Story: A Nasty Android Bug
For or Against: AI Coding Assistants
Explain Bitcoin to Grandma
MISSL Launch: Changing Team Mindset
Education
Northeastern University
2005 - 2007
Focus on computer engineering, architecture, and usability design.


Northeastern University
2000 - 2005
Graduated Suma cum Laude • Recipient of the Sears B. Condit Award awarded for outstanding academic achievement • Finished runner-up in Senior Capstone Project Competition for building SAINT - a ticketing system for ski resorts that utilized RFID technology which allowed real-time search for party members.

Projects

Dec 2024
I built an AI coach for myself to help me with entrepreneurship. I found it so useful I soon began building coaches for others. I've built AI coaches for marketing leaders, writers, product managers, and CEOs.

Oct 2024
Experimenting with generative AI blending the worlds of technology and creativity.

Feb 2023
To better understand LLM retrieval augmented generation (RAG), I built a website that would answer questions about startups using embeddings created from Paul Graham's essays. The site was built using Next.js, React, Tailwind CSS, OpenAI, and deployed as a dockerized lambda on AWS. I also explored vector databases including Pinecone.

Apr 2018 - Oct 2022
To learn about machine learning, I built a model to predict hitting streaks and compete in the MLB Beat the Streak competition. I discovered that my intution about which baseball stats were most important were wrong. I was able to achieve a hit streak of over 30 games, landing me a temporary spot on the global leaderboard.

Dec 2021
As a gift for team members, I created a limited edition NFT Collection, the RSA Labs Crypto Club. NFTs were minted on the Ethereum blockchain and distributed to team members.
Patents
Patent Number: 11,558,425
Year: Jan 2023
Patent Number: 11,463,430
Year: Oct 2022
Patent Number: 11,343,255
Year: May 2022
Patent Number: 11,258,603
Year: Feb 2022
Patent Number: 11,223,473
Year: Jan 2022
Patent Number: 11,128,638
Year: Sep 2021
Patent Number: 11,126,703
Year: Sep 2021
Patent Number: 20,210,241,192
Year: Aug 2021
Patent Number: 20,210,241,231
Year: Aug 2021
Patent Number: 11,055,389
Year: Jul 2021
Patent Number: 11,062,005
Year: Jul 2021
Patent Number: 11,032,271
Year: Jun 2021
Patent Number: 10,992,665
Year: Apr 2021
Patent Number: 10,949,524
Year: Mar 2021
Patent Number: 20,210,035,120
Year: Feb 2021
Influential Books
by Dale Carnegie
Helped me improve my listening and communication skills and build better relationships.
by Don Norman
Forever changed the way I think about design and usability.
by Clayton Christensen
Introduced me to the concept of Jobs Theory and how to innovate based on customer needs.
by Steve McConnell
Taught me how to identify bad abstractions and write clean maintainable code.
by Gene Kim, Patrick Debois, John Willis, Jez Humble
Changed how my teams deliver software. Helped me understand the importance of DevOps and how to implement it in an organization.
Get in Touch
I'd love to connect! Here's how you can find me:
- Email hello@brianmullins.dev
- Twitter/X @briancmullins
- LinkedIn bmullins