Amber DunnEngineering Manager · Product & Platform

Career overview

Engineering Manager

Frontend & Product Engineering · Complex Systems & Modernization · Player-Coach

20+ years across product engineering, frontend systems, and full-stack delivery.

I bring more than two decades in technology and software, including more than a decade in engineering leadership. I’m frontend-rooted and full-stack capable, with a record of making complex systems understandable—from product interfaces and modern web platforms to data pipelines, payment workflows, and hardware integrations.

I combine people leadership, product judgment, and hands-on ownership of architecture, modernization, team development, and high-risk delivery.

  • 10+ years in engineering leadership
  • Frontend-rooted · Full-stack capable
  • Nevada · Remote Nationwide
0 / 0
Downtime / known launch defects
Live migration from Create React App and Heroku to Next.js and Vercel
295 hrs/mo
Manual work removed
Operations workflow automation delivered in approximately two to three weeks
22 mo → 2–3 mo
Delivery lifecycle redesigned
Reusable model that supported at least eight website launches
50%
Fewer regressions
Stronger testing and regression-prevention practices in the first three months

Career arc

The scope widened. The technical foundation stayed.

I entered through hands-on web and systems work, grew into product architecture and delivery ownership, then expanded into engineering leadership without stepping away from the technical decisions that shape outcomes.

  1. 2004–2012

    Hands-on foundation

    Freelance web delivery, business operations, and graphics architecture

  2. 2012–2015

    Product engineering

    Financial applications, reusable systems, and repeatable delivery

  3. 2015–2020

    Engineering leadership at scale

    Distributed teams, product platforms, technical strategy, and hardware integration

  4. 2020–Present

    Team and product leadership

    Team development, product rescue, modernization, accessibility, and technical quality

Professional experience

The résumé gives the headline. This timeline shows the work behind it.

Across the roles below, the recurring work is product modernization, technical discovery, high-risk delivery, team development, and creating systems that other people can confidently own.

Explore the complete work collection
  1. 2025–Present

    Independent technical evaluation

    AI Training Specialist — Project-Based Consultant

    Project-based consulting · Remote

    I evaluate AI-generated code, software architecture, system designs, debugging approaches, and technical documentation for engineering correctness, maintainability, reliability, production readiness, edge-case handling, and architectural tradeoffs.

    Project-based consulting completed alongside family caregiving responsibilities.

    Selected impact

    • Apply production engineering judgment across varied code, architecture, debugging, and documentation tasks.
    • Identify weak assumptions, hidden failure modes, and gaps between plausible output and sound engineering.

    Architecture review · code evaluation · debugging · model quality · technical documentation

  2. Jul 2024–Oct 2024

    Onaroll

    Engineering Manager

    Shift-worker rewards SaaS · Remote · Team of 4

    Led a four-person product engineering team while designing and implementing most of a live modernization of the flagship rewards platform.

    Position eliminated in a layoff affecting recent hires.

    Selected impact

    • Migrated Create React App and Heroku to Next.js and Vercel with no downtime and zero known launch defects.
    • Reduced migration risk by mapping dependencies across the React application, Django services, AWS infrastructure, deployment environments, and external integrations; established staging, production-like rehearsal, backup, rollback, and monitoring procedures.
    • Improved delivery velocity by approximately 30%, onboarded an additional engineer, and coordinated delivery across Product, Design, Infrastructure, QA, and Customer Success.
    • Used evidence-based coaching to surface engineers’ strengths and ownership; an underestimated engineer later earned a promotion after my tenure.

    React · Next.js · TypeScript · Vercel · Heroku · AWS · Django · GraphQL

  3. Jul 2023–Jul 2024

    Keeper Memorials

    Engineering Manager / Frontend Team Lead

    Public-service memorial technology · Remote · Team grew from 2 to 4 contributors

    Led frontend engineering with responsibility for people development, team growth, delivery planning, technical direction, quality, accessibility, and coordination with product, design, government, and platform stakeholders.

    Selected impact

    • Rebuilt team capacity during a leadership transition, helping grow the engineering group from two to four contributors while maintaining delivery for an established public platform.
    • Strengthened testing and regression-prevention practices, contributing to a 50% reduction in regression volume during the first three months.
    • Delivered new administrative capabilities in under two months while advancing Section 508 accessibility and reusable frontend standards.

    React · TypeScript · Next.js · Redux · Chakra UI · Node.js · AWS · Docker · Section 508

  4. May 2020–Sep 2022

    Midigator

    Engineering Manager / Development Team Lead

    Payment-dispute management SaaS · Remote · Team grew from 3 to 6 engineers

    Inherited a high-risk dispute-management product and growing distributed team, then established clearer technical direction, stronger delivery practices, shared ownership, and development paths that helped engineers advance into senior and leadership responsibilities.

    Selected impact

    • Grew the team from three to six engineers and supported three promotions within 18 months.
    • Stabilized DisputeFlow 2 and led its evolution into DisputeFlow 2.1 with configurable custom fields, reusable content snippets, flexible templates, reporting, document generation, and rule-driven workflows.
    • Partnered with Operations and Product to replace a spreadsheet-dependent workflow with a React and Node.js platform delivered in approximately two to three weeks, saving roughly 295 hours of manual entry per month.
    • Designed and built most of a standalone Node.js ingestion service that collected daily files through secure SFTP, normalized incompatible schemas, validated records, handled failures, and delivered data through the existing platform API.

    React · TypeScript · Node.js · document generation · reporting · rule-driven workflows · secure SFTP · data ingestion

  5. Aug 2019–May 2020

    Poetic Labs

    Chief Technology Officer

    FinTech · Gaming · Blockchain · Hardware-integrated products

    Led engineering strategy, architecture, technical discovery, hiring, and delivery across early-stage initiatives involving payments, financial technology, gaming, blockchain systems, and hardware-integrated products.

    The company ceased operations after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted its early-stage business and funding environment.

    Selected impact

    • Designed and built a production Node.js controller for a globally deployed Bitcoin ATM bill recycler, using finite-state-machine architecture to translate a timing-sensitive binary serial protocol into safe cash-management workflows.
    • Delivered 39 REST endpoints, operational recovery controls, and integration across hardware behavior, external APIs, transaction state, and physical cash movement.
    • Produced approximately 95 pages of technical documentation so the system could be operated, maintained, and extended safely.

    Node.js · finite-state machines · binary serial protocols · REST APIs · hardware integration · payments · system architecture

  6. 2015–2019

    NexGaming

    Director of Software Engineering

    Gaming and payments technology · Distributed and primarily offshore engineering teams

    Helped organize and lead a distributed engineering contributor network that expanded from roughly five to 35 people across my nearly four-year tenure—not as one simultaneous reporting team—while directing technical strategy, architecture, hiring, project staffing, and delivery across gaming, payments, SaaS, analytics, and custom product initiatives.

    Selected impact

    • Built leadership and delivery capacity across multiple, primarily offshore project teams while remaining involved in architecture and hands-on product work.
    • Took a custom casino operations platform from stakeholder conversations and paper models through architecture, full-stack implementation, third-party integration, testing, remote deployment, staff training, and production launch in approximately nine months as the sole developer of the initial release.
    • Independently reverse-engineered ten legacy C++ and DirectX slot titles and built a reusable HTML5 and CreateJS engine separating shared game state, weighted outcomes, wager and credit flow, paylines, payouts, assets, animation, and events from title-specific rules.

    JavaScript · React · Node.js · CreateJS · C++ · behavioral modeling · game systems · payments · blockchain · platform architecture

  7. 2012–2015

    AgFirst Farm Credit

    Senior Software Engineer

    FinTech and banking · Association website delivery

    Developed banking applications and digital tools while improving the systems used to deliver and support association websites.

    Selected impact

    • Redesigned a fragmented association-website delivery process into a reusable, parallel model that reduced the first full discovery-to-launch lifecycle from approximately 22 months to two to three months.
    • Supported at least eight website launches through the model while enabling two engineers to independently lead association sites in parallel.
    • Built reusable Kentico, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS foundations and transferred the process through pairing and documentation.

    Kentico · JavaScript · HTML · CSS · CMS integrations · responsive frontend engineering

Earlier foundation

Where it started.

I started taking on freelance web work in 2004. That grew into business operations, ownership of multiple company websites, and a graphics-architecture internship before I moved into full-time product engineering.

2004–Jan 2009 · Aug 2011–Dec 2012

Independent

Freelance Web Development Consultant

Designed and delivered client websites and early software solutions, including a legal outreach and operations platform built from public data. This work established the hands-on web, client communication, and problem-solving foundation that preceded my formal product-engineering roles.

Client websites · early software projects · public-data workflows · digital delivery

Jan 2009–Aug 2011

Mutual Modeling Associates

Business Manager / Webmaster

Managed business operations and multiple company websites for a finance and investment business, including e-commerce and auction workflows, marketing platforms, inventory, and technology-enabled process improvements.

HTML · CSS · JavaScript · jQuery · Joomla · business operations

Jun 2010–Dec 2010

Intel Corp

Graphics Architecture Intern

Developed systems used to analyze and collect data from hardware systems globally, adding graphics-architecture and hardware-system experience to an existing web and business foundation.

Graphics architecture · hardware-system data analysis

Completed while continuing the Mutual Modeling Associates role remotely.

Education

Business perspective and engineering depth.

MBA, Technical Business Management

Keller Graduate School

BS, Game & Simulation Programming

DeVry University

Selected technologies

Languages & Frontend

TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Next.js, Redux, AngularJS, HTML, CSS, Chakra UI, CreateJS

Backend & Data

Node.js, Express, GraphQL, REST APIs, MongoDB, SQL, secure SFTP integrations, data ingestion and normalization

Architecture & Systems

Finite-state machines, event-driven workflows, protocol-driven integrations, system design, integration architecture, application modernization

Cloud & Delivery

AWS, Docker, Vercel, Heroku, application modernization, production deployments, staging environments, monitoring, backup and rollback planning

Quality & Accessibility

Cypress, Jest, automated and manual testing, Section 508 accessibility, regression prevention, production readiness, technical documentation

Continue reviewing

Use the concise résumé for applications, the project stories for evidence, and Contact when the role looks aligned.