- Engineering
Learn what a forward deployed engineer does, how the role differs from traditional software engineering, and why hire one to support enterprise customers.
Filip Luchianenco
Austin, TX, USA
Principal engineer, startup VP, founder. Built NBC streaming for 10M+ users, scaled a 0 to 1 startup to $2M+, now building AI security
I've spent 12 years building products end to end, from first commit at a startup to Principal Engineer at NBCUniversal, and I still write production code every day. I move between founder-level strategy, system architecture, and hands-on engineering.
At NBC I was technical lead for streaming apps serving 10M+ users. I held 99.9%+ uptime through Olympics-scale traffic (2,000+ years of watch time in two weeks), cut build times ~90% with a modular architecture migration, and drove AI-assisted develo…
Work
Principal Software Engineer at NBCUniversal
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nbcuni.nbc.androidtv&hl=en_US2017–2025 · Remote (Austin, TX)
promoted Senior → Lead → Principal
99.9%+ uptime for 10M+ users through Olympics-scale traffic (2,000+ years of watch time in two weeks) and NFL playoff peaks.
Cut build times ~90% (15 min to ~2 min) by leading a monolith-to-modular migration across 4 platforms, with trunk-based development and feature flags.
Cut playback start time 40% and rebuffering 4x with a custom …
VP of Engineering at Batelle
Part-time (~20h/week) · Remote (UK)
first engineer → VP · team 0 to 6
Built the full DTC product from scratch: mobile apps (native then React Native), Shopify storefront, WordPress marketing sites, and internal React dashboards.
Built Stripe payment infrastructure: recurring subscriptions, one-time purchases, complex pricing tiers, and webhook orchestration.
Migrated native iOS/Android to React Native
Owned build-vs-buy and the technical roadmap, working directly with founders.
Company raised $2M+.
Founder & Solo Engineer at Can I Trust That
https://canitrustthat.com/Built a multi-agent LLM system that runs in production daily: a lead agent maps each app's architecture, then orchestrates 8 specialized investigators in parallel across security and privacy domains. 15,000+ obfuscated classes analyzed per app.
Production stack: FastAPI backend, React frontend, Stripe billing, OTP auth, and 11 workers across 2 servers handling iOS/Android decompilation, CI/CD, and …
Founder at Calibra Lightbar
https://calibra.ai/lightbarsmart-lighting hardware · concept to market
Took a smart-lighting hardware product from concept to market: industrial design, IoT integration (Alexa, Google Assistant), manufacturing, and supply chain.
Launched an e-commerce storefront and took pre-orders. Full product lifecycle beyond software.
Experience
NBC
Principal Software Engineer
Mar 2020 - Aug 2025
Principal Android Engineer at NBCUniversal, serving 10M+ users across streaming platforms (Peacock, NBC Sports, Bravo, Telemundo, USA) on Mobile, Fire TV, Android TV, and Kindle. Architected apps through Olympics-scale traffic (2,000+ years of watch time in 2 weeks) at 99.9%+ uptime. Reduced build times ~90% with a modular architecture migration and drove AI-assisted development adoption across teams. Tech: Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, ExoPlayer.
- Cut video start time 40%, improved rebuffering 200% for 10M+ users
- Mentored 8+ engineers, set Android standards company-wide
- Led AI-assisted development adoption across 5 engineering teams
- Published ExoPlayer optimization article, built HLS/DASH systems at scale
UI Centric
Lead Mobile Software Engineer
Jul 2017 - Mar 2020
Lead mobile engineer building and shipping NBC streaming apps across Android mobile, Fire TV, Android TV, and Kindle. Owned cross-platform delivery and led the mobile team through feature work and releases.
- Promoted from contractor to team lead within 3 months
Lama P
Software Engineer
Dec 2014 - Jul 2017
Built web and mobile apps for clients and managed a small development team, handling client relationships, project scoping, and delivery.
- Built white-label restaurant platform serving 50+ locations across 6 brands
- Created interactive wall with low-latency video responding to mobile input
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