Chad Ostrowski

9-year veteran of web2 startup & consultancy world, full-time in web3 for 4 years since 2019

Experience

Aha Labs • Cofounder • 2021 - now

Rust • TypeScript • Smart Contracts • WebAssembly (Wasm) • R&D

Built front half of RAEN • Streamlined NFT landing pages for TENK DAO • Initiated improved developer experience for Soroban CLI • Helped smart contract SDK authors compare Rust+Wasm approaches • Helped guide shape of nascent Soroban testing library

Pagoda (fka Near Inc) • Software Engineer • 2020 - 2021

TypeScript • AssemblyScript • Rust • Smart Contracts • WebAssembly

Built initial Rainbow Bridge UI • Delivered well-loved talk about Rainbow Bridge at ETH Denver 2021 • Collaborated to create initial version of ground-breaking blockchain testing library, near-workspaces • Onboarded partners to main blockchain network • Created & maintained open source demo applications

Autark • Front End Lead • 2019

TypeScript • JavaScript • React • Solidity • Aragon

Set engineering standards • Co-maintain open source projects • Screen and interview candidates • Work in remote and asynchronous team environment • Advocate for quality via code reviews and pair programming

Theorem (FKA Citrusbyte) • Tech Lead • 2016 - 2019

TypeScript • JavaScript • React • Ruby • UX • Product • Leadership

Collaborate with client, product manager, and designer to analyze core pain, find best solutions, and prioritize timeline

Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology • Curriculum designer / Professor • 2017

Elixir + Phoenix • Public Speaking • Teaching/Mentoring

Forged new web engineering curriculum, designed and taught two courses

Entire.Life • Cofounder • Since 2015

React • Native • GraphQL • Product • Business

Ideation, product and UX design, code backend + frontend, create business plan, research markets & customer segments

Firehose Project • Mentor • 2015 - 2018

Teach, guide, pair on code, assign appropriate homework

Inksy • Senior Engineer • 2015

React • HTML Canvas • Software Architecture

PipelineDeals • Engineer • 2013 - 2015

Ruby on Rails • React • DevOps with Ansible • Message Queue • Google Calendar integration

Charitybuzz • Engineer • 2012

Realtime page updates with Web Sockets

Comcast • Engineer • 2010 - 2012

Ruby on Rails • Test Driven Development • Pair Programming

Talks

Make it RAEN: Tooling for Ambitious Open Web Apps

The biggest gap in NEAR’s current tooling & education exists between “hackathon Proof-of-Concept” and “full-scale app”. How’s a hacker to evolve a weekend project into a well-architected codebase that serves a userbase of millions? What are the best current patterns for building on the Open Web, and how can a builder upgrade to the latest patterns “for free”, harnessing the research and development of the whole ecosystem, rather than re-performing the research themselves?

RAEN has already laid the foundation for tooling that answers these questions. We’ll learn how it works now, where it’s headed, how to get started (so easy!), and how to get involved.

NEAR vs Soroban vs CosmWasm: how SDKs wrap the key-value store

One of the first things you do when writing a smart contract is create some data and store it. Every blockchain I know of uses a key-value store to persist this data, but the way various SDKs provide access to that data store varies significantly. This video compares the approaches of three different Rust-to-WebAssembly (Wasm) smart contract platforms: NEAR, Soroban, and CosmWasm.

Online/Offline Equivalence: What our interplanetary tomorrow can teach us about building apps today

An introduction to building web apps that perform well, no matter how slow a user’s network speed, and a tour of some of the ways the web may evolve in the future.

Quiz Quizzical Quixotic: Managing Pure-State UI Flows Without Losing It

A talk about the messes we sometimes make when creating nice user experiences, and how to turn them into nice developer experiences as well. The code-cleanup discussed in this video eventually became an open source library, react-quizzical.

Earth Clouds Are The Best Clouds

A whimsical spoken-word performance about humanity’s future in space, and the small things we’ll miss when we’re elsewhere.

Education

BSc, Engineering Science and Electrical Engineering

From Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania, 2005-2009

Schreyer Honors College • Cum Laude • 1st Place, Engineering Design Competition

Thesis title: Exploration of novel heterostructure semiconductors to create energy efficient, tunnel-based Field Effect Transistors (project code and report PDF)