Douglas C. James

Currently Portland, OR — California native  ·  doug@minute.tech

debugdoug.com  ·  linkedin.com/in/douglasrcjames  ·  github.com/douglasrcjames

Computer engineer turned engineering leader — 10 years shipping production web products, nine of them running my own profitable software studio. I sit where business meets engineering: leading small teams, owning client relationships end to end, and turning messy requirements into secure, scalable, AI-native products. Currently building Merchie.tech, a multitenant e-commerce SaaS for the branded-merchandise industry, and leading its SOC 2 compliance program. I build for people first — safety, security, and privacy by default.

Skills

Leadership: Team leadership (built & led teams of 5–7), client & stakeholder management, technical strategy, project scoping & delivery, cross-functional boards

Engineering: TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, React Native, Swift, Python, MySQL, Firebase, GCP, Stripe, Twilio, REST APIs, HTML/CSS (10 yrs)

Security & Compliance: SOC 2 (leading current audit program), ISO 27001 & GDPR alignment, RBAC, 2FA, rate limiting, password management (1Password, NordPass, Dashlane), security documentation review

AI-Native Development: Agentic coding workflows (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex), AI features in production, prompt & context engineering, AI-assisted architecture with human review standards, safety-first & responsible AI deployment

Experience

• Founded and scaled a technical consulting studio; lead a 7-person team across engineering, design, animation, and sales while owning every client relationship from pitch through delivery.
• Designed, built, and operate 30+ custom production websites — a bespoke Next.js CMS serving ~30,000 monthly visitors (6amgroup.com), a children's-literacy nonprofit with a custom family audiobook player and direct Stripe donations (turnthepagekc.org), an interactive tribute to Broadway director Michael Bennett (mirrorman.studio), and more — write-ups at minute.tech/case-studies.
• Architected Linkbase, an in-house platform for rapid, secure deployment of web apps — ecommerce, RBAC, 2FA, rate limiting, and a full automated test suite — now the foundation for all new product work.
• Building Merchie.tech, a multitenant e-commerce SaaS for the corporate branded-merchandise industry, architected on Linkbase from day one; leading its SOC 2 compliance program end to end — policies, controls, vendor review, and audit readiness.
• Launched Minute.works, an on-demand tech-support app (chat, video, scheduling) that delivered 12,000+ consultation minutes with seamless payments.

• Proved demand with a multitenant storefront proof of concept for Stitch Fix and Levi's campaigns — ~400,000 pageviews in under a month — then architected ~30 custom single-tenant React/Firebase (GCP) stores for clients including Google, Zoom, Okta, Workday, and DocuSign.
• Managed the dev team building and maintaining ~2,000 web stores averaging ~8,000 users per store.
• Served on five governance boards (Leadership, ISMS, Ops, Webstore, Processes), steering company technical vision; reviewed security documentation for ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR compliance.
• Key technical liaison between leadership, sales, and external tech teams; oversaw ~75 company and client domains (DNS, redirects, acquisitions).

• Coldbrew Creative — Website Developer (2017–2018): built and maintained sites for Bay Area businesses, working directly with clients.
• Tesla — Product Specialist (2016): guided customers through the early EV lineup at the Santana Row showroom.
• Palo Alto Networks — IT Specialist (2015): supported 2,000+ employees and tracked a global hardware fleet.
• ACFN — IT Technician (2015): diagnosed and serviced ATM hardware, networking, and cash systems in the field.

Education

Coursework from silicon up: C/C++, Verilog, assembly, computer architecture & network design.