Reid Russell · Dallas, TX · Senior software engineer · Private pilot · KJ5JQC
Software engineer who keeps ending up in hardware.
By day I build data infrastructure and backend systems in Rust and Python. The rest of the time I design the things software isn't supposed to touch: turbine engine controllers, phased array antennas, autonomous drones. Then I write the software for those too.
On the bench right now
4 active- Active Turbine Engine ECU A from-scratch engine control unit for a miniature turbojet: custom STM32 PCB, safety-first bare-metal firmware, and a desktop bench app, all built after the factory ECU died.
- Active Drone Ground Station A portable ground control station in a Pelican 1550: mini PC, custom ESP32-S3 control-panel PCB, dual MFD displays, and a fully engineered 12V LiFePO4 power system.
- Active Skeet: Autonomous Target Drones A family of cheap, fully autonomous target drones for testing counter-UAS systems: no control link to jam, swarm behavior, and TSPI scoring data, optimized for unit cost.
- Active This Website The site you're reading: Astro static build, S3 + CloudFront hosting, GitHub Actions CI/CD, and a browser-based CMS so updates don't require a git push.
Selected work
All projects →Notes
All notes →The old site ran a Jekyll theme in a Docker container on ECS and went stale anyway. The rebuild attacks the actual problem: updating it was annoying.
Video downlink stability, a temporary FLIR mount, and the moment the naive thermal detector met a Texas summer.
Passed the amateur radio Technician exam, a deliberate foundation step for the antenna and drone RF work.
Off the clock
More →Flying (private pilot, high-performance endorsement, chipping away at the instrument rating), an unreasonable amount of reading, 35mm film photography, sourdough from home-milled flour, and a recipe collection to prove it.