Area
Public benefits & social services
The systems people meet when they need help: benefit applications, eligibility, and the records behind them. I built inside California’s Department of Social Services, and since August 2026 I lead engineering for CiviForm, the open-source platform four governments use to take benefit applications. The record below is the platform’s; my part in it is stated as scope.
Record
CiviForm: the public record, and my role in it
CiviForm is the open-source benefits-application platform four city and state governments run in production. I was recruited in August 2026 to lead its engineering. This page is what the first month held, and what remains the platform’s record rather than mine.
Social services, energy, and utilities
Resident services, caregiver background checks, regulatory energy data, certification workflows, licensing, and claims systems.
Writing
A missing answer is not a no
In the Medicaid unwinding, most people who lost coverage were never determined ineligible. Their case just did not hear back, and the system recorded that the same way it records a no.
Questions I get asked
What is CiviForm, and what is your part in it?
CiviForm is open-source software governments use to take benefit applications, with a resident’s answers reused across programs. Seattle, Arkansas, Charlotte, and Bloomington run it. I lead engineering for it at Exygy as of August 2026; the platform’s figures predate me and are not claimed as mine.
What did you build for California’s social services?
At the California Department of Social Services I built resident-facing registries and the caregiver background-check systems that licensing depends on. It is where I learned to collect less data and to keep a person responsible for the result.
What does a missing answer mean in an eligibility system?
Nothing, until a person checks. In the Medicaid unwinding most people who lost coverage were never found ineligible; their case did not hear back, and the system recorded that the same way it records a no. The essay listed above is about exactly that.