Jake Berg

Co-founder, CTO, and hands-on engineer helping startups build the product, scale the team, and grow the business.

818.688.1287
jake@dubsado.com
Burbank, CA

Experience

  1. Oct 2024 – Present

    IndependentFractional CTO & Principal Engineer

    Built interactive interfaces for various clients in the medical space using AI-driven development (Claude Code). Advised founders and startups on system scalability and architecture through stack assessments, code reviews, and architecture analysis to identify risks, improve reliability, and align technical decisions with business goals.

  2. Feb 2015 – Present

    DubsadoTechnical Co-Founder

    Bootstrapped a CRM with my wife using a pile of JavaScript books. Grew the company from $0 to $8M ARR in five years. Evolved into the Engineering Manager role.

    Oct 2022 – Oct 2024

    CTOImproved cross-team developer workflow by streamlining complex nested branching strategies into a single staging-to-production environment. Over six months, reduced self-induced incident rate from about 60% two years ago to less than 5% over the last three months. Successfully delivered essential client-facing features within a complex legacy codebase while simultaneously maintaining agile development on new greenfield products. Facilitated a complete migration from DigitalOcean to Google Cloud.

    TechnologiesNode.js · CI/CD · TypeScript · REST · GraphQL · MongoDB · Terraform · GCP

    OperationsOct 2024 – Aug 2026GrowthAug 2026 – Present

  3. Mar 2020 – Nov 2022

    Social CuratorFractional CTO

    Resolved major scaling issues with WordPress site by moving SQL database to GCP and leveraging self-healing VM instances. Decoupled PHP runtime from on-disk sessions using Redis for multi-instance sharing. Successfully launched product without downtime, maintaining costs on par with WP Engine. Implemented quality-of-life features in legacy codebase before deploying real-time swap to new React/Firebase codebase. Hired a full in-house development team on behalf of the client, then handed off to their new team lead.

    TechnologiesReact · Node.js · Firebase · React Native · GCP

  4. Mar 2014 – Jan 2019

    RoboLikeOwner and Operator

    Grew to 15,000 users at its peak and served over 100,000 separate accounts over five years. Developed using the CakePHP framework (self-taught). Wrote a streaming transparent proxy from scratch in Node.js, replacing a middleman—including the logo from the target site—without client or server awareness. Maintained a clear budget; identified and halted a production issue caused by a contractor’s code that saved the company over six figures in one day.

  5. Jan 2012 – Oct 2017

    SkyboltContract Software Developer

    Reduced repetitive human tasks via automated cron jobs in PHP, saving the company 15% in recurring labor expenses. Enhanced a legacy Perl codebase to add quality-of-life improvements for existing users. Managed uptime for legacy systems with cloud server companies. Hired a new lead engineer and handed off full control after fully migrating to the new Firebase/React codebase.

Skills

Cloud & Infrastructure
GCP, Vercel, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, observability & monitoring, performance optimization, cost planning
Backend
Node.js, TypeScript, GraphQL, REST APIs, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis
Frontend
React, Remix, Next.js, React Native, iOS/Android native development, responsive design
Engineering Leadership
Hiring & building high-performing teams, system architecture design, database migrations, scaling strategies, code review processes, mentoring developers, Agile/Scrum methodologies

Education

Computer Science coursework at University of San Diego, Pasadena City College, and Santa Barbara City College. Focus on data structures, algorithms, test-driven development, and full-stack programming. Self-taught through real-world projects and continuous learning via Egghead.io, Educative, and Frontend Masters.