Ben Overmyer · Full-stack and platform engineer · St. John’s, Newfoundland
Email me · LinkedIn · Concise résumé
This page collects my professional roles, business and creative work, and education in one place.
Specialties: Infrastructure (esp. with Terraform), back-end development (esp. Go), front-end development (esp. Svelte+TypeScript), performance, observability
Preferred Programming Languages: TypeScript, Python, Go, PHP
Other Skills: Team leadership, mentoring, architectural design, and communicating technical information to different audiences
June 2026 to present
I work on a sensor- and AI-based system intended to reduce firefighters’ cancer risk. My work spans planning, design, full-stack development, and verification. I review AI-generated code for correctness, performance, and alignment with project requirements.
September 2025 to December 2025
While studying at Memorial University, I took an internship working as a backend and devops engineer at Nutraforge. The work was mostly automation and monitoring setup, with some backend development on two of the APIs behind the company’s mobile app.
July 2021 to July 2025
I helped build and design the platform and infrastructure that underlie Apiture’s services. I abstracted away the AWS and Docker infrastructure so app developers could build for the platform and not need to understand infrastructure themselves. Often I wore multiple hats - architect, coder, mentor, troubleshooter, sounding board, and others. Among my achievements here, I architected and built out a Wordpress hosting system that used ECS, EFS, and RDS for backing services and Terraform, Python, and Jenkins for automation.
May 2018 to July 2021
I worked as a senior DevOps consultant to enable enterprise clients to meet their cloud infrastructure, automation, and containerization needs. In this capacity, I managed Docker Swarm and Kubernetes, architected infrastructure on AWS and Azure, converted legacy VMs into containerized workloads, and coached clients on best practices. I also ran the internal devops and tabletop games communities and volunteered for additional ad hoc community leadership roles occasionally.
November 2017 to May 2018
I helped build and automate systems to keep Spok at the forefront of secure healthcare communications technology. My focus was on monitoring and alerting systems, but I also worked extensively with AWS and Jenkins CI/CD. I discovered and helped mitigate the effects from an AWS breach.
September 2015 to November 2017
I managed the operations team for the digital department at the Star Tribune. I oversaw and guided the implementation and maintenance of their digital infrastructure, as well as lead initiatives to improve performance, reliability, cost effectiveness, and general awesomeness of the same. As a technical manager, roughly half of my time was spent doing the technical work alongside my direct reports.
September 2013 to September 2015
I worked on a variety of systems to keep the Twin Cities’ best newspaper on the front edge of the digital frontier. Foremost, I was the lead operations engineer responsible for architecting the infrastructure for the Star Tribune’s newly-rebuilt 2015 web platform. I built out AWS infrastructure using Ansible and designed the system to be scalable enough that it was able to weather the onslaught of traffic in the wake of Prince’s death.
May 2013 to September 2013
For the most part, I worked on back end systems using PHP and MySQL, with a heavy dose of Symfony2 and Doctrine. I was also the core developer of a versatile survey platform, the front end of which I built in AngularJS.
August 2011 to May 2013
In addition to my duties as a lead developer, I managed the IT and development staff at G3M. In this capacity, I reduced IT infrastructure costs by 60% by migrating to the cloud, increased developer efficiency through the introduction of new processes like digital time tracking, and built client-tailored marketing databases and applications. I migrated legacy applications built on Visual Foxpro to PHP and lead development of a web-based loyalty rewards system built on Symfony2.
June 2011 to June 2011
I worked on telecommunications back end software using C# and C++.
April 2008 to May 2011
I aided in the development and design of several geospatial data delivery web applications using Java and PHP. I reimagined, redesigned and took ownership of the LPDAAC internal message board and other internal web-based communications projects.
August 2007 to April 2008
I developed web applications for internal use. Primarily, I used Oracle Application Express, PHP, Oracle 10g, MySQL, and Java.
June 2002 to August 2007
Over these six years I did freelance web design work on a sporadic basis.
August 2006 to May 2007
Repaired and built computers, provided extensive customer support, designed and maintained company website, designed and implemented public relations and marketing campaigns, designed and produced all internal artwork, logos, and stationary.
January 2004 to June 2004
I designed user interfaces and level layouts using proprietary software, Adobe Photoshop, 3D Studio MAX, and other tools. I also acted as liaison between the coding and artwork teams.
August 2002 to November 2002
I designed and maintained two company websites, built a Flash-based virtual company lobby using 3D Studio MAX, and redesigned company branding.
I co-founded and helped run Silver Gryphon Games, a tabletop game company. My work included game design, writing, art, web tools, and business operations. The company has since closed. See my writing credits, art credits, and tabletop games for individual projects.
I build open-source software, including Iron Arachne, a collection of worldbuilding generators. My software projects page has more detail.
M.A.Sc., Software Engineering, 2025 - present (in progress)
My studies cover formal theory, including algorithms and computational complexity, alongside applied software engineering practices such as formal verification, UML specification, and software development methodologies. I have also written several papers as part of the program.
B.A., History, 2004 - 2007 (Degree Received)
I began as a computer science major, pursued a computer science and history double major, and ultimately completed a history degree. My capstone paper examined the American occupation of Japan after World War II. I also studied German.
Activities and Societies:
B.A., Japanese, 2002 - 2003 (Incomplete)
My studies focused primarily on Japanese language and culture.
B.F.A., Digital Media, 2000 - 2002 (Incomplete)
I studied fine arts across art history, art theory, sculpture, painting, ceramics, metalwork, and computer animation.
Activities and Societies:
B.S., Digital Media, 1999 - 2000 (Incomplete)
My coursework combined Japanese language, fine arts, and computer audio.
Activities and Societies: