RZ VOL. IX · HENDERSON, NV · MMXXVI PORTFOLIO, No. 01

01 The Engineer

Ricardo
Zavala

Staff Software Engineer

Henderson, NV

I build the systems behind the systems. Over nine years I've worked across the full stack for Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, and startups, shipping everything from real-time GIS platforms and PCI-compliant payment gateways to AI-driven underwriting pipelines. Right now I'm deep in early-stage fintech, architecting backend infrastructure from first commit. I like small teams working on hard problems.

GitHub Book a Chat Email
Ricardo Zavala

§ 01

A career, plotted.

Now
2025 - Present

Arkra

Co-Founding Backend Engineer

Architecting backend services for an AI-powered equipment finance platform. Building RESTful APIs with .NET 8 and Entity Framework Core, AI-driven underwriting pipelines in Python, and CI/CD with Azure DevOps.

2025

Axon

Senior Full Stack Engineer

Built secure, multi-tenant law enforcement data platforms with AI-powered enrichment pipelines at the global leader in connected public safety.

Jun - Oct 2025

Idaho National Laboratory

Software Engineer (Contract)

Fixed-term contract at a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory. Full stack .NET development using C#, .NET 8, MVC, Entity Framework, and SQL Server on internal research and infrastructure systems.

Federal & Enterprise
2022 - 2025

Accenture Federal Services

Senior Full Stack Engineer

Delivered high-scale applications for USPS serving millions of daily users, from real-time GIS mapping to PCI-compliant payment systems.

2022

Cigna

Full Stack Engineer

Worked on healthcare platforms serving millions of members, building shared component libraries and observability tooling.

2021 - 2022

Touch To

Frontend Engineer

Architected micro-frontend systems and real-time dashboards for digital ordering in hospitality and defense sectors.

Early Career
2018 - 2021

Zappos

Web and Mobile Developer

Built customer-facing e-commerce features at scale, including PWAs and payment systems handling 18M+ monthly transactions.

2016 - 2017

Vegas.com

Web Development Intern

Cut teeth on production web development at a major online travel platform. Built internal tooling and broke a few things along the way.

§ 02

Selected Work.

Nomadhood preview
PLATE II Nomadhood, live capture
FULL-STACK PLATFORM

Nomadhood

Neighborhood intelligence platform for digital nomads. Aggregates seven external APIs (WalkScore, Rentcast, FBI crime data, BLS economics, Eventbrite, newsdata.io, Unsplash) into a unified neighborhood profile. Features a cosine-similarity recommendation engine that learns from your review history across six lifestyle dimensions, a composite scoring algorithm that blends community ratings with objective data, and a news intelligence pipeline with signal classification and sentiment-based risk alerts. 19 Prisma models, 54 tRPC procedures, three access tiers.

Next.js 15 · React 19 · tRPC v11 · Prisma 6 · PostgreSQL · MapLibre GL · Zod · Bun

Live App Source
Blaqjaq preview
PLATE III Blaqjaq, live capture
GAME ENGINE + 3D

Blaqjaq

3D blackjack with a 1951 Flamingo-era film noir aesthetic. The game engine is a pure reducer with zero React dependencies: 782 lines, 14 action types, full insurance/surrender/split mechanics. A complete basic strategy engine evaluates every decision against optimal play, and session analytics track your tendencies across hard, soft, and pair hands with P&L charting. The 3D scene uses React Three Fiber with five GLTF models, ACES filmic tone mapping, and procedural Web Audio API sound effects.

React 19 · TypeScript · Three.js · React Three Fiber · Vitest · Vite 6

Play Live Source

§ 03

The Lab.

Weekend-scope builds on public data. Smaller than the plates, held to the same bar.

Civic data · Hackathon build

Emergency Lifeline Auditor

When the next disaster hits, can this county hear the warning and move?

Five federal datasets joined on county FIPS (CDC Social Vulnerability Index, FEMA National Risk Index, CDC PLACES, HHS emPOWER, OpenFEMA declarations) feed derived metrics for digital alert risk, daytime population surge, expected impact, and power-dependent residents. A zoomable choropleth, a severity-banded table, its map legend, and a per-county dossier all read one shared color scale, and every filter and selection serializes to the URL so an analyst can send a colleague the exact view.

3,144 counties · 5 federal datasets · 6 derived metrics

Next.js 16 · React 19 · TypeScript · TanStack Table · react-simple-maps · Vitest

Live App Source

§ 04

Right now.

BUILDING
Backend infrastructure for an early-stage fintech, from first commit.
READING
Kleppmann's Designing Data-Intensive Applications.
INTERESTED IN
Backend systems that hold up under real scale.

§ 05

Skills, traced.

Hover a node to trace its path.