CJ de Bruyn
Prosper,TX
Summary
Lead Software Engineer & Application Architect with 15+ years of experience in distributed systems and large-scale migrations. Currently leading technical strategy for 6 teams at Capital One, architecting next-generation financial capabilities (Real-Time Payments, Automated Funding, GovID) while driving AWS Serverless adoption, service right-sizing, and Continuous Deployment (CD) adoption. Passionate about leveraging AI tools for efficient development, including GitHub Copilot and Windsurf in professional workflows, and Amazon Q for personal projects. Holder of 4 US Patents covering API automation, real-time production validation, and microservice frameworks. Technical background combines systems tooling (building developer tools for embedded processors) with modern cloud-native Java architecture.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
Work History
Lead Software Engineer (Application Architect)
Capital One
Plano, TX
01.2025 - Current
- Strategic Leadership: Partner with Solutions Architecture to drive technical direction for 6 agile teams in the Auto Refinance domain. Leading the Serverless Migration (Fargate/Lambda) and Continuous Deployment (CD) readiness initiatives, ensuring scalable and reliable distributed systems.
- CD Readiness Strategy: Defined the standardization path for CD adoption, including a Feature Toggle strategy, functional test enhancements with Mountebank (Service Virtualization), and standardized New Relic alerting thresholds across the domain.
- API Governance (Patented): Invented a novel 'AI-Driven Test Data Framework' (US20250383941A1) utilizing Evolutionary Algorithms to generate functional test data, standardizing service registration across the platform.
- High-Value Initiatives: Architected end-to-end flows for Real-Time Payments (RTP), Automated Funding, and GovID Identity Verification (One-Time Pin + ID Scanning).
- Consolidation & Right-Sizing: Pivoted the org from a failed GraphQL experiment to a 'Right-Sizing' plan, consolidating 40+ BFF services.
- AI Tool Adoption: Integrated AI-assisted tools like GitHub Copilot and Windsurf into team workflows to accelerate code development, improve quality, and foster innovation in migration and platform projects.
Lead Software Engineer (Decisioning Platform)
Capital One
Plano, TX
06.2020 - 12.2024
- Career Progression: Senior > Principal > Lead Software Engineer
- High-Performance Architecture (Multi-Offers): Architected the 'Multi-Offers API,' generating 100+ loan offers in under 1 second. Successfully migrated legacy Oracle Stored Procedures to this microservice using a Parallel Run strategy (Mocked Persistence) to verify millions of transactions with zero customer impact.
- Complex Model Integration: Engineered the integration of 3 critical decisioning models (Account Level Valuation, Customer Risk, and Deal Risk) into the real-time path using an asynchronous non-blocking architecture to decouple latency-heavy dependencies.
- Real-Time Validation (Award Winning): Created a 'Resource Validation' system (US Patent 12346307B2) to detect pricing/policy defects in production real-time, earning the Chairman's & President's Club Award.
- Shared Microservice Framework (Patented): Created a library-based framework (US Patent 20250225046A1) allowing developers to spin up net-new microservices by defining only domain models, abstracting infrastructure boilerplate.
- Process Governance (Patented): Developed a 'Software Development Process Controller' (US Patent 20250265548A1) to serve as the single source of truth for business intents, aligning Product and Engineering.
- Speed to Market: Implemented a Centralized Policy Limits engine and 'Quick Price Deployment' pattern, decoupling business logic from the core codebase to allow pricing changes in minutes rather than weeks.
Senior Software Engineer
Sophos
Cranberry Township, PA
01.2018 - 05.2020
- Developed a management layer backend with REST APIs (Java/Spring Boot) to configure and monitor security services.
Senior Software Engineer
Netronome
Centurion, SA
04.2013 - 01.2018
- Note: Relocated from South Africa to US HQ in 2016.
- Developer Tooling: Built the Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Simulator, and Debugging Daemons using Visual C++ and Python, used by embedded developers.
Software Engineer
Rapid Mobile
01.2011 - 01.2013
- Built secure military communication apps (C++) and GSM gateways.
Business Intelligence Specialist
Telkom
01.2011 - 12.2011
- Prototyped AI/Computational Intelligence algorithms to predict customer churn.
Skills
- Languages & Frameworks: Java, Spring Boot, C, Python, SQL, REST, GraphQL
- DevOps & Tools: Git, GitHub, Jenkins, Splunk, New Relic, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, Observability
- Architecture & Cloud: Distributed Systems, Microservices, Event-Driven Architecture, AWS (Lambda/Fargate), Kafka, API Gateway, High Availability, Resilience
- AI & Algorithms: Evolutionary Algorithms, Particle Swarm Optimization, AI-Assisted Development (GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Amazon Q)
Patents Publications
AI-Driven Test Data Generation (US20250383941A1), Resource Validation Systems (US12346307B2), Shared Common Microservice Framework (US20250225046A1), Software Development Process Controller (US20250265548A1), Evolutionary Algorithms and Particle Swarm Optimization for Artificial Language Evolution (IEEE Congress)
Education Certifications
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate, Active
- B.Sc. (Honours) & B.Sc., Computer Science, University of Pretoria, Distinction, 2010
Timeline
Lead Software Engineer (Application Architect)
Capital One
01.2025 - Current
Lead Software Engineer (Decisioning Platform)
Capital One
06.2020 - 12.2024
Senior Software Engineer
Sophos
01.2018 - 05.2020
Senior Software Engineer
Netronome
04.2013 - 01.2018
Software Engineer
Rapid Mobile
01.2011 - 01.2013
Business Intelligence Specialist
Telkom
01.2011 - 12.2011