David Fruhling
Pennington
Summary
Dynamic engineer and engineering manager with expertise in distributed systems design, clean code practices, and a user-centric approach to problem-solving. Proven ability to lead diverse, distributed teams across various seniority levels, transforming ambiguous requirements into successful greenfield products and features. Dedicated to servant leadership by proactively identifying team needs and facilitating solutions to ensure focus and optimal performance. Passionate about fostering an environment where innovation thrives and engineers feel a sense of community, enabling team members to deliver their best work.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
Work History
Engineering Manager
Human Interest
01.2026 - Current
- Lead the “Money Out” team, which is comprised of 6 direct reports of varying seniority
- Mentor the team on using AI to drive results against both system optimization/improvement and product-driven initiatives
- Break down organizational silos and build a culture of camaraderie, collaboration and cross-education
Senior Software Engineer
Human Interest
03.2025 - 01.2026
- Project design and implementation on Human Interest’s “Money Out” team, which is responsible for all of the processes which require funds to be sent to a participant from their plan
- Built out and supported an AI-driven customer support chatbot by integrating with Decagon.ai, which deflects more than 70% of incoming customer questions from reaching human support staff
Associate Engineering Manager
LeafLink
08.2023 - 01.2025
- Lead an engineering team and maintain responsibility for its process, quality, and delivery
- Successful and smooth delivery of LeafLink’s Payment On Sell Through (PoST) functionality, which has processed > $2mm in order volume, and is key in LeafLink’s overall strategy
- Collaborate with product, design, and engineering peers across the organization to coordinate complex deliveries
- Foster an environment of camaraderie, collaboration, and open and healthy communication
Technical Lead
LeafLink
06.2022 - 08.2023
- Technically lead and mentor a team of engineers, providing technical guidance, mentorship, and career advice
- Define and implement team processes to address project deficiencies around requirements, estimation, design and architecture
- Lead and coordinate the design and implementation of new software features
- Architecture of distributed solutions and microservices with AWS infrastructure
- Create new Self-Service Customer Enrollment experience which increased conversion of pageviews to leads to ~20.5% (healthcare industry average is 10%), and conversion of leads to customers to ~70% (was previously ~50%)
- Build and architect the company’s first Customer-facing self-service portal
- Introduce the organization to the concepts of Event Driven Design and Contract Testing
Technical Lead
divvyDOSE
11.2021 - 06.2022
- Technically lead and mentor a team of engineers, providing technical guidance & career advice
- Collaborate with Product to plan and refine projects to prepare them to be presented to the rest of the engineering team
- Build and architect AWS-hosted services with Python, .NET Core, Node.js and Terraform
Senior Software Developer
Zip Co (formerly QuadPay)
09.2020 - 11.2021
- Design, architect, implement, and coordinate cross-team projects and new product features
- Build and architect Azure-hosted services in .NET Core using Event Sourcing and CQRS
- Develop and support platform which transacts > $5m/day
- Independently architected and implemented a Referral Rewards feature which helps convert hundreds of new customers per day and incentivize them to make their first in-app transaction
- Write software documentation
- Mentor junior engineers
Senior Software Developer
Billtrust
06.2019 - 09.2020
- Serve as lead technical resource in Scrum team
- Architect AWS-hosted microservices to be performant at scale, transacting > $20m/day
- Serve as subject-matter expert regarding product suite and supporting technology
- Provide technical guidance to Dev and QA teammates
- Identify opportunities to reform and improve existing technology and practices
- Build proof-of-concept solutions to vet new technologies
Software Developer
Billtrust
03.2018 - 06.2019
- Build out a payment platform with an Angular 7 frontend and .NET Core 2.1 backend services
- Build out stateless RESTful microservice architecture, all hosted in AWS and configured with Terraform
- Leverage Docker to containerize applications hosted on ECS
- CI/CD pipeline through Jenkins
- Implement fuzzy-search functionality with ElasticSearch
- Develop best practices and coding standards with a mindset of always trying to leave code cleaner than it was before
Software Developer (Production Support)
Billtrust
10.2016 - 03.2018
- Provide support for all of Billtrust’s PHP-based web products and APIs
- Make rapid fixes to production issues
- Design and implement enhancements to internal tools
Senior Python Developer
Billtrust
09.2014 - 10.2016
- Develop custom software implementations for each client
- Develop proofs of concept for potential clients
- Mentor and offer assistance to project managers & client services reps with general platform-related questions or client-specific logic
- Conduct training sessions in both general programming and Billtrust-specific functionality
- Build internal web-based and Windows-based utilities to automate tasks
Python Developer
Billtrust
05.2012 - 09.2014
- Map data elements from billing files into system properties using XML and writing scripts with Python to manage/manipulate client data
- Customize code, fixing system defects and updating the system per change orders
- Develop SQL scripts to implement system changes and data fixes and generate reports
- Analyze business requirements and client materials to build the best solution for the end user
- Perform code/output review to ensure high quality deliverables
Analyst
Nomura Securities International
08.2011 - 05.2012
- Server administration, monitoring and support
- System backup monitoring
- Infrastructure deployment and support
- Software deployment
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Information Technology & Informatics
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ05-2011
Skills
- Coaching and mentorship
- Managing full-time hires and contractors
- Building a culture of support, camaraderie, and accountability
- AI-forward engineering
- Programming languages: C#, Python (2/3), Typescript/Javascript, PHP
- Databases: MySQL, SQLServer, PostgreSQL, Amazon RDS, MongoDB, ElasticSearch, EventStoreDB, Redis, RDS, DynamoDB
- AI tools: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Augment Code, Gemini, Unblocked, Decagonai
- Cloud Services: AWS, Azure, Supabase
- CI/CD: Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, CircleCI
- Distributed Systems Design
Timeline
Engineering Manager
Human Interest
01.2026 - Current
Senior Software Engineer
Human Interest
03.2025 - 01.2026
Associate Engineering Manager
LeafLink
08.2023 - 01.2025
Technical Lead
LeafLink
06.2022 - 08.2023
Technical Lead
divvyDOSE
11.2021 - 06.2022
Senior Software Developer
Zip Co (formerly QuadPay)
09.2020 - 11.2021
Senior Software Developer
Billtrust
06.2019 - 09.2020
Software Developer
Billtrust
03.2018 - 06.2019
Software Developer (Production Support)
Billtrust
10.2016 - 03.2018
Senior Python Developer
Billtrust
09.2014 - 10.2016
Python Developer
Billtrust
05.2012 - 09.2014
Analyst
Nomura Securities International
08.2011 - 05.2012
Bachelor of Arts - Information Technology & Informatics
Rutgers University