Josaphat Valdivia is Senior Software Engineer with over 10 years of professional experience currently in the market for his next opportunity. People tend call him “Jos” (pronounced /‘dʒos/).
Josaphat is a proficient software developer who leverages good Software Engineering practice in all of his projects. He is most proficient in C++ and C, has a working knowledge of C# and Python, and knows enough Java, Rust, and Go to break builds. He’s comfortable with shell scripting and has experience in web development with PHP, JavaScript, and Ruby on Rails.
Although a kind of computer-language polyglot, with respect to natural languages Josaphat is bilingual, with Spanish being “like a first language,” although years of English-only education have made English his dominant tongue.
He is a strong communicator, a confident public speaker, and is adept at delivering engaging technical presentations.
Over the last 15 years, through both academic and professional experience, Josaphat has been exposed to a wide range of technologies, from Matlab and Octave, through CSS, to GNU Assembler for Cortex-M ARM architectures. He primarily develops on GNU/Linux, is proficient with git, and is at home in the terminal. While today he mostly uses emacs, he was long-time vim user (with a few enhancements) and still reaches for it for quick editing tasks.
He has dabbled in computer graphics and game development since his time at RIT, where he was introduced to SDL and OpenGL. Over the years, he’s explored frameworks like XNA and Monogame, and more recently Godot. This has culminated in the development of an indie video game called Aberrant.
For writing and note-taking, Josaphat uses org-mode in emacs, and he prefers LaTeX for documents that might be committed to paper. He is nevertheless fluent in conventional office tools like Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, and Google Docs. He wouldn’t rank among the spreadsheet wizards, but he knows how to use Excel/Sheets and also has some experience analyzing data and producing charts gnuplot.
Josaphat occasionally builds experimental software in his free time. Some of it ends up on GitHub, and more recently on sourcehut. Most of it isn’t particularly useful: He is okay with that.
When he’s not writing code, he’s playing guitar or wrangling friends to play TTRPGs or any number of board games.
Professional History
Josaphat earned his B.S. in Computer Engineering (Software Engineering option) from Rochester Institute of Technology in May 2015.
As part of his degree, he completed a co-op at Brand Networks (2012-2013). There he worked as a full-stack developer on the now-defunct OpenForum.com (archived May 2013), built for American Express using PHP and WordPress.
In 2014, Josaphat joined a startup initially called Cryptolabs, which soon became Case Wallet. As part of a small engineering team, Josaphat helped build a dedicated hardware bitcoin wallet featuring biometric security (product page archived July 2015). He wrote embedded C code targeting bare-metal ARM. Among other things, he integrated peripherals like fingerprints scanners, e-ink displays, and 2G modems using serial interfaces like UART, SPI, and I2C.
After shipping the wallet, the company shifted focus and rebranded as Token to develop a biometrically-secured wearable called Token Ring. Josaphat took on the role of a Software Architect where he advocated for modern C++ in embedded systems, introduced automated testing with Jenkins, and helped establish practices for unit testing embedded code, all while contributing directly to the firmware.
In 2019, Josaphat joined REDCOM, contributing to Sigma, a unified communications platform. His most notable work included spearheading integration of a subsystem to bridge push-to-talk radios with SIP-based telephony (called XRI), as well as implementing the backend infrastructure for a new operator switchboard feature called C2 Console.
Josaphat did about 6 months of light contract work in 2021-2022 on the development of ARM-based NFC payment systems, using NXP libraries and FreeRTOS. Notably, he developed a CMake build system that allowed retargetting to new configurations more easily.
In May 2022, Josaphat joined Datto as a Senior Software Engineer on BCDR Agents. This position didn’t turn out to be the right fit, especially following an acquisition, so he moved on after about six months. During his short tenure, he contributed to agents security and design.
Later that year, Josaphat joined Glowforge as a Senior Embedded Software Engineer, contributing to firmware for Glowforge Aura. He led adoption of CMake to unify diverging codebases, integrated Google Test, and helped enhance both build and test infrastructure using Jenkins. He played a key role in integrating the Personal Air Filter with Aura (primarily using BlueZ), and also developed test infrastructure in coordination with the air filter factory.
After a company-wide restructuring in Februrary 2024, Josaphat’s position at Glowforge was eliminated.
Since then he’s been working Aberrant, an indie video game built with Godot (C#). The game isn’t public (although it isn’t secret), but if you’re interested in play testing a roguelite-tactical combat game, reach out for a Steam key!
Josaphat is now seeking his next role, ideally in Systems Programming, but as you might guess from his professional history and hobbies, he has a generalist mindset and broad technical foundation that makes him effective in a wide variety of domains.
Around the Web
Josaphat has some presence on various corners of the web, including Mastodon (fosstodon), sourcehut, LinkedIn, Twitch, BlueSky, GitHub, and here on josaphat.co.
You can reach out to mail@josaphat.co for any inquiries.
Resume
Josaphat’s more succinct resume is available for download as a PDF.