James Maunsell
he/they · Beacon, NY
Goals
Design robust backend architecture that enables empathetic user workflows.
Skills
- Fluent in Java, Go, Python, and Scala; familiarity with C and C++
- Fluent in French
- Software deployment within a microservice architecture
- Compilers and code execution infrastructure
- Systems design including distributed networks and operating systems
- Building approachable user workflows with clean visual design
Experience
Datadog
Oct. 2025 – present
Senior Software Engineer — Graphing, Reporting & Sharing
- Owned and delivered CSV scheduled reports for Log Explorer and Notebooks analysis cells
Datadog
July 2022 – Oct. 2025
Software Engineer II — Graphing, Reporting & Sharing
- Built product features and infrastructure for Datadog's core product, dashboards
- Built async pipeline for rendering PDF scheduled reports of dashboards
- Built MCP tools for agentic dashboard editing
Palantir Technologies
Oct. 2021 – May 2022
Software Engineer — Production Infrastructure
- Wrote software to deploy software artifacts to air-gapped networks
- Wrote software to orchestrate software deployment to Kubernetes clusters under security constraints
Palantir Technologies
Sept. 2019 – Oct. 2021
Software Engineer — Foundry Code Workbooks
- Optimized the product's distributed Spark execution framework
- Implemented Git-style merge functions on software objects
- Expanded support for native R object types
- Integrated with an adjacent programming environment to record software environment history
Palantir Technologies
June – Aug. 2018
Software Engineering Intern — Build Infrastructure
- Refactored a build system for hundreds of Java plugins
- As a Hack Week project, wrote a simpler replacement plugin build system that is still in use today
Nutanix Inc.
June – Aug. 2017
Software Engineering Intern
- Designed and implemented a Python library for visually comparing time series data across bundles of low-level performance statistics
- Supplemented library with a command-line tool for generating sets of plots
Nebulous Labs Inc.
May – Aug. 2016
Software Engineering Intern
- Expanded test coverage for the core modules, API and command-line tool of a blockchain-based distributed cloud storage platform
- Built and operated a Linux host server to monitor platform performance
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2015 – 2019
B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering, Class of 2019
- GPA 4.8/5.0; concentration in French
- Graduate courses in computer systems: built a Linux-style OS in C, wrote a Raft distributed key-value store in Go, designed a Bluetooth mesh network iOS messaging app in Swift
- Led a team to build and optimize a C-style compiler from scratch in Scala; designed a cross-compiler from an actor-based Scala derivative to C with the MIT Programming Languages group
- Pursued political science with interests in technology policy and the role of race in crime politics
- Elected president (Sept. 2016–Sept. 2017) of a dormitory under transition, working with administration to advocate for a community largely comprised of students from underrepresented groups
- Elected Treasurer of the MIT Bitcoin Club (Sept. 2016–May 2017)