I build production software, and lead the teams that ship it. Twenty years in.
I've been writing production software for twenty years, and leading the teams that ship it. I started at UCLA, scaled engineering at B Capital, and now lead application development at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. My open-source work on Moodle ended up running at 10,000+ institutions, serving 30,000+ users.
What I enjoy most is the part of the job that doesn't fit on a slide: untangling a legacy migration, mentoring an engineer into a tech lead, replacing a fragile prototype with something that runs for years, writing code other people actually want to read. Beneath all of it: I'm drawn to building tools that help people communicate better, from an LMS used by tens of thousands of students to investment workflows that move decisions faster between Finance and Legal.
Based in Chino, California Open to full-time, contract, or short-term projects
PowerShell CLI Accessibility
Cross-platform PowerShell CLI that checks Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files for accessibility issues, with no Office installation required. Published to the PowerShell Gallery.
JavaScript Accessibility Web Audit
Accessibility audit across all University of California campus homepages, inspired by the WebAIM Million project. Surfaces WCAG issues to drive systemwide a11y improvements.
TypeScript React Vite
Catalog of entrepreneurship programs across all 10 University of California campuses, covering incubators, accelerators, funding, competitions, courses, and maker spaces in one place.
Python Flet Personal Finance Desktop App
Day-by-day balance projection from Monarch Money data, flagging low-balance dates before they hit.
JavaScript Vite AI Game
2048 with an expectimax solver, move coaching, and a strategy guide. Play, learn, or watch the AI solve it.
PHP REST Moodle Zoom API
Moodle plugin (mod_zoom) for scheduling, managing, and launching Zoom meetings directly from a course page.
PHP Open Source Git JIRA
Long-term contributor to the Moodle LMS; recognized as a Particularly Helpful Moodler (top 1% of forum contributors).
Shell AI Agents Developer Tools
Prompts, skills, and scripts for working with AI coding agents in development workflows.
AWS CloudFormation EC2 RDS EFS
Enhanced an AWS Moodle template into a disaster-recovery solution for CCLE, UCLA's Moodle LMS.
Open source contributions
Python MCP OpenAI Gemini
Added gpt-image-1.5 and imagen-4-fast support, provider health checks, and Claude Code MCP compatibility.
Swift tvOS App Store
Modernized an open-source Apple TV Internet Archive browser and prepared it for App Store release.
Swift File I/O MAPI
Memory-mapped I/O and a convenience API for the Swift PST file reader, plus improved message loading.
2025 – Current
School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis
2021 – 2025
B Capital
2011 – 2021
Common Collaboration and Learning Environment (CCLE), UCLA
2003 – 2011
SEASnet Computing, HSSEAS, UCLA
April 2026
Presented to the UC Tech group covering my usage of AI agents in identifying and resolving web site accessibility issues to become WCAG 2.2 AA/AAA compliant.
March 2026
Presented to the UC Tech group about using AI agents in a loop to accomplish goals such as code reviewing and plan refinement.
February 2026
Presented at Toastmasters and UC Tech, exploring the evolution of software development by examining key milestones that shaped the industry and offering an optimistic perspective on its future.
August 2025
Presented at Toastmasters to explain the buzzword "Vibecoding."
September 2019
Demonstrated our Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) improvements at the 2019 MoodleMoot US conference in Philadelphia.
November 2017
We showcased our CCLE summer internship program at the 2017 MoodleMoot US conference in Miami.
June 2016
Presented an overview of PHP 7 features and performance improvements at the 2016 MoodleMoot US conference in Los Angeles.
August 2015
Gave a workshop on using Behat, the automated browser based testing framework, at the 2015 MoodleMoot US conference in Minneapolis.
Remote or hybrid. Remote is where I do my best deep work; hybrid keeps the whiteboarding and team-building I'd miss going fully solo. Either way, what matters more is the team: people who push each other's thinking and care about the craft.
Full stack, with the deepest roots in PHP and JavaScript. On the backend that's Node, MySQL and PostgreSQL, REST and SOAP integrations, plus the DevOps glue (Docker, AWS, Jenkins) that keeps things shipping. On the frontend, React, Svelte, Vue, and lately the VoidZero toolchain (Vite, Oxlint, Oxfmt). I've also spent two decades in and around Moodle, both as a contributor and a plugin author.
Collaborative, but with a point of view. I want engineers to own their work and disagree with me when they should; my job is to keep the team's goals aligned with the business, unblock people, and step in with a call when consensus stalls. Mentoring is the part I enjoy most: I've watched a number of interns and junior engineers grow into tech leads, and that's the work I'll still be making time for in any role.
Building and running the CCLE summer internship program at UCLA from 2011 to 2020. Each cohort shipped real work on Moodle: database performance, caching, API design, web services. A lot of those interns are now engineers and tech leads in the industry, and that program is the achievement I'd put first, ahead of anything I can point to on GitHub.
Here is what some of the people I've worked with have said.
One of the most remarkable aspects of Rex's work is his ability to approach problems independently while still collaborating effectively within our team. He consistently produces high-quality solutions that are not only functional but also creative and well-considered. Rex's attention to detail ensures that his work meets or exceeds expectations, and he brings a fresh perspective to challenges we faced.
VP of IT, B Capital
Rex is a one in million quality colleague and human being. I've worked at CCLE for 6 years with him on the Agile team, watching him mentor UCLA students (summer internship) and other developers have repeatedly inspired me.
LMS Support Coordinator/Change Analyst, UCLA
During the time that Rex worked on my team he consistently demonstrated excellent skills as a Technical Lead and as a Developer both on the operations side and in application development. He is able to focus on development objectives and communicates in a clear, patient and effective manner with both non-technical stakeholders and technical team members alike.
CCLE Coordinator, UCLA
If any of that lands, the fastest way to reach me is email. Always open to a conversation.