We solve hard problems

We are a software consulting firm specializing in systems software engineering. Our team consists exclusively of senior software engineers and executives with over a decade of experience.

Our Work

Urbit Logo

Our team has a shared background through working together on Urbit, a novel networked operating system. Together, we have shepherded several research projects from conception through production deployment across various domains.

We are particularly well versed in tackling complex challenges in software engineering. Some examples:

Principals

Theodore Blackman (~rovnys-ricfer)

Theodore has deep expertise in managing technical projects, including a dozen-person team developing an operating system and network protocol, as Chief Technical Officer of the Urbit Foundation. Previous experience includes robotics, distributed systems, data engineering, full-stack web development, and embedded systems. He was a YC founder in 2011, and holds a degree in physics from MIT.

Josh Lehman (~wolref-podlex)

Josh has been leading software organizations for over a decade. He has a knack for organizing teams of developers. Most recently he was the Executive Director of the Urbit Foundation, where he worked closely with Theodore on Urbit’s most ambitious core development projects. Previously Josh was the CTO and cofounder of Starcity (YC S16, acquired by Common in 2021).

Team

Luke Champine (~watter-parter) // network protocols, cryptography

Luke is a 3rd-generation programmer specializing in cryptography, networking protocols, and performance optimization. Since dropping out of college to co-found Sia, a leading cloud storage cryptocurrency, he has worked across all layers of the stack, from ASIC mining firmware to JavaScript frontends; TCP multiplexing to distributed consensus; vectorized assembly to novel Merkle tree research, and more. He treats programming as an end in itself, and outside of work he enjoys tinkering with a new language designed for competitive programming.

Rikard Hjort (~bithex-topnym) // decentralized finance, blockchain, security

Rikard is a security auditor and DeFi developer who’s has spent the last five years securing a variety of protocols with billions of dollars worth of assets under management and led various auditing teams with a dozen employees. He previously worked on formal verification based audits and tools at Runtime Verification, Inc. and as a lead security researcher for Spearbit, one of the leading cryptocurrency and DeFi auditing organizations. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Chalmers University of Engineering, Sweden.

Liam Fitzgerald (~hastuc-dibtux) // network protocols, application development

Liam’s experience includes networking protocols, decentralized applications and developer tooling. His most recent project was an experimental application layer for Urbit that unified build systems, smart contracts and user facing applications, which involved subprojects spanning systems, frontend and application programming. His previous projects include Tlon’s secure decentralized messenger, which is the largest application on the Urbit platform, as well as working on the Urbit kernel in various capacities. He studied Biomedical Engineering and Mathematics at the University of Queensland before dropping out.

~mopfel-winrux // embedded systems, machine learning

~mopfel-winrux's previous experience includes processor development and positions at NASA and Lockheed Martin Research & Development. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech.

~barter-simsum // operating systems, memory management

~barter-simsum's previous experience includes implementing a novel fault-tolerant persistent memory allocator for Urbit, where he also used pointer compression to expand the addressable memory in a 32-bit language interpreter. Before Urbit, ~barter-simsum worked at Microsoft on optimizing storage drivers in the Windows kernel. ~barter-simsum holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Miami University.