Max Ellis
Senior Software Engineer building resilient systems — with a firefighter's mindset
About Me
High-velocity Senior Software Engineer with a proven track record of architecting scalable data platforms and automating mission-critical infrastructure. Expert in backend development for distributed systems, utilizing Java, Snowflake, and AWS to process massive data volumes. Recognized for “smoke jumping” into critical projects to restore stability, performance, and reliability.
My unique perspective stems from my time as a wildland firefighter, where I learned to roll up my sleeves, adapt rapidly to changing situations, and now fight any “virtual fires” that arise. This foundation, combined with my commitment to building resilient systems and solving complex problems at scale, fuels an unwavering drive to contribute meaningfully and engineer transformative change.
I'm passionate about AI-augmented development — I mentor engineers on AI workflows using Claude Code and other LLM tooling, and recently architected a multi-agent RAG infrastructure using AWS Bedrock.