Steven Pollack

Senior Full Stack Engineer — Fraud & Identity

OFX · Sydney, AU · October 2022 – March 2025

FinTech evolving from foreign exchange into a broader money platform for SMEs and retail customers.

• Took ownership of customer-facing MFA enrolment and step-up flows, modernising the frontend Okta integration and delivering React components from Figma designs
• Reduced frontend CI duration by 50% through code optimisation, accelerating PR feedback for 15+ engineers and reclaiming hours of wait time each day
• Designed and implemented automated Okta allowlisting for preview environments on branch creation and cleanup on deletion, unblocking authenticated QA workflows and reducing reliance on shared staging
• Refactored a legacy Pulumi-based Okta IaC codebase by removing brittle abstractions, moving configuration into Pulumi config, and modernising E2E coverage with reusable Playwright page objects

Tech: TypeScript, React, AWS (CDK, Lambda, API Gateway, EventBridge, SQS), Pulumi, Okta, Playwright, Storybook, MSW

Senior Full Stack Engineer (Contract)

TechChange · Remote (Washington D.C., US) · August 2025 – December 2025

Kolab: online collaboration platform combining video conferencing with shared document editing.

• Led the design and implementation of the reactions feature end to end, from database design through backend enhancements and frontend component development
• Built a deployment pipeline that eliminated manual releases, improving delivery speed and reducing operational overhead
• Brought staging and production environments under infrastructure-as-code and redesigned the cloud architecture behind a load balancer to support automatic horizontal scaling
• Introduced E2E testing into the CI workflow, establishing meaningful PR-level coverage and improving release confidence

Senior Full Stack Developer

FutureNow Solutions Ltd · London, UK · May 2022 – December 2024

Subcontractors on BP's internal app "Accelerate", consolidating knowledge silos and reducing duplicated developer effort.

• Advocated for, planned, and executed the migration from vanilla React to Next.js
• Designed and developed the UI for Axel, the first LLM-based chatbot at BP, securing exclusive LLM access for the Accelerate platform
• Championed accessibility — mandated WCAG AA minimum for all new components and refactored legacy components for responsive design
• Proposed and PoC'd moving the frontend from EBS to S3 + CloudFront, achieving 50% faster page load and kicking off an IaC initiative with Terraform/Terragrunt
• Mentored juniors through pair-programming and thorough code reviews
• Introduced Storybook + Cypress/Playwright standards resulting in 4 months of daily deployments with zero regressions

Tech: TypeScript, GraphQL, React, Next.js, Azure DevOps, Docker, Jest, Storybook, Cypress

Software Developer

Cohesive Labs Pty Ltd · Sydney, AU · August 2021 – May 2022

Crypto hedge fund focused on market-making and arbitrage strategies.

• Improved the trading program UI and automated key use cases
• Improved execution performance of the trading program by 10%
• Designed abstract interfaces to integrate with various cryptocurrency exchanges

Tech: TypeScript, Jest, GitHub, REST, Terraform

Software Developer

Brilliance Financial Technologies · Sydney, AU · August 2020 – August 2021

B2B SaaS for banks to more accurately price loans.

• Developed a variety of proof-of-concept AI/ML features
• Designed and implemented a third-party integration for DPX
• Prototyped a Salesforce adapter using Lightning Web Components

Tech: C#, .NET, Angular, Clarity Design System, Salesforce LWC, JavaScript

Data Scientist (Freelance)

The Medical Republic · Sydney, AU · March 2020 – August 2020

Daily news publication for Australian medical professionals.

• Analysed data and created Tableau visualisations for print and web articles
• Optimised newsletter delivery using Bayesian A/B testing
• Scraped & visualised NSW COVID-19 data

Tech: R, Python, Tableau, Google Sheets

Founder

Cake Catering Co. · Berlin, DE · August 2016 – May 2019

Organic, vegan, wholesale bakery with 90% market penetration at Bio Company stores.

• Built from scratch, grew to 3–7 employees, sold in May 2019
• Coordinated production schedules and supply chain optimisation
• Hired, trained, and managed ~15 people
• Created processes enabling 3 days' worth of work in 6 hours with 3 employees

Machine Learning Engineer

So1 · Berlin, DE · June 2014 – January 2016

B2B SaaS recommendation engine and price-discrimination tool; later acquired by the Schwarz Group.

• First point of contact for the CTO/CRO on all data-related questions
• Developed algorithms and prototyped consumer behaviour models
• Authored several internal R packages including one for Bayesian A/B testing
• Formalised the applicant screening process for data science recruits