Megan Pearson

Megan Pearson

Engineering + Product in Amsterdam, She/Her

About

Two decades ago, I began my career as a pilot and flight instructor at Purdue University Airport. From there, I joined United Parcel Service working as an Industrial Engineer, before transitioning to tech - pivoting from Industrial Engineer to Software Engineer.

I worked for several years at Bakken & Bæck building complex and interesting products and, last year, moved from agency to startup. Currently, I'm helping Pitch imagine new ways of communicating visually and leading a multi-disciplinary team to build features for the core product.

Work Experience

2022 — Now
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • lead a team of 5 engineers, 1 designer, and 3 multi-disciplinary folks to shape, build, and execute

  • created the vision and strategy and led the execution for the complete animation suite

  • rapid, exploratory prototyping to validate unconventional solutions

  • built internal component library tooling (similar to Storybook) in Clojure

2020 — 2022
2018 — 2020
2016 — 2017
Software Engineer at Fete Typer + Savant
Oslo, Norway
2012 — 2015
Co-Founder at the Dapper Dog co.
New York City, NY
2009 — 2012
Freelance Developer at Freelance
Los Angeles, CA
2006 — 2008
Industrial Engineer at United Parcel Service
Louisville, KY
2004 — 2005
Certified Flight Instructor at Purdue University Airport
West Lafayette, IN

Projects

2023

Identified and removed large blocker to user adoption by building an animation suite that is now a differentiating and well-loved feature.

2022

Explored and prototyped various concepts that were the pre-cursor to the now, fully realised animation suite.

This included early exploration work with dynamic, custom cursors and an interactive mode of presenting that resulted in a primary differentiating feature called focus effect.

2021

At Bakken & Bæck, I dreamed up På(fyll) - a circular service aiming to reduce single use plastic from everyday home and personal care. As the Lead Engineer and Product Owner, I led a team and partnered with external stakeholders to turn the idea from project to viable business.

2021

A digital toolkit to visualise and realise your interior design ideas.

2021

A digital singing experience filled with beautifully pre-recorded songs by some of Norway’s most prominent artists.

2020

A series of digital experiments to imagine new ways of living.

I built an app and API to connect and control IKEA's Trådfri smart blinds. Experimenting with mindful manipulation of the window blinds, I created a functional solution to embrace the light and welcome the dark according to the weather and time of day.

2019

A digital service that simplifies and reforms the traditional real estate model.

As one of two frontend engineers, I built the first version of both the user-facing and admin platforms using React, Gatsby, and Yarn workspaces on a Python backend.

2018

A cryptocurrency platform that provides universal access to financial services

I was responsible for early stage development work on integrating DApps into a platform called Toshi, which later became Coinbase Wallet.

Side Projects

2021

Created a small package to fetch project colors from Figma and generate custom CSS properties.

2021

Experimented with iOS widgets and Shortcuts scripts. Published a Shortcut that will update your iPhone wallpaper automatically (at sunrise if you choose) to the NASA picture of the day.

Awards

2020

Together with my colleagues, we won the DOGA Service Design Award for our work on Samsolgt - a service that disrupts the traditional real estate industry.

2020

Fast Company named Bakken & Bæck one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2020, together with notable companies like Nike, Webflow and Form Us With Love.

Volunteering

2023 — Now
Volunteer at Agroforestry (Amsterdam Forest)
Amsterdam

Contributing to an Agroforestry project in the local forest, initiated by the municipality of Amsterdam, by native planting trees, herbs, and vegetables.

Education

2015 — 2015
New York University

Formalised my self-taught development skills through this intensive dev bootcamp.

2011 — 2011
New York City

Studied global affairs with a focus on environmental policy.

2002 — 2006

Studied Aviation Technology and became a certified pilot and flight instructor with multi-engine and instrument ratings.

Certifications

2006
Certified Flight Instructor from FAA
2003
Commercial Pilot License from FAA

Commercial license with multi-engine and instrument ratings

2002
Private Pilot License from FAA

Contact

Website
GitHub
LinkedIn