Ryan FischerSoftware engineer · Charlotte, NC ryan@onomatopoeia.biz

I’m Ryan, a software engineer based in Charlotte, NC. I like taking ownership of a useful application—from understanding what people need to designing the interface and building the software behind it.

Selected engineering work

Independent softwareAug 2025–Present

Sitzmark

Sitzmark helps Scrabble players study words, follow player progress, and explore tournament results.

I build its React/Vite interface with TypeScript, Python services, and PostgreSQL reporting. Engineering notes ↓

Try Lex or Hex ↗No account needed

Judge whether a string is a valid word. Word Wisp, a Spelling Bee-like game, requires an account.

Engineering behind the product
  • 21,392 players, 8,915 tournament events, 1,353,388 distinct games, and 2,662,989 player-round result rows.
  • Cut a player-dashboard request from about 10 seconds to 0.26 seconds using PostgreSQL materialized views.
  • 1,008 passing tests: 560 Python backend, 404 Vitest, and 44 Playwright. GitLab CI configured.
Engineering write-up ↗Inspect player achievements ↗Project overview →
Paid engineering · Cigna2020–2021

BEAM

From claim-denial data to compliance reports.

BEAM automated spreadsheet generation with the specific formatting required by different states and reporting domains.

My contribution

I designed the initial interface and handled most implementation as Lead Web Developer (BEAM project). Architecture decisions were collaborative; other team members wrote the SQL queries supplying the data I integrated.

Reporting workflow

  1. 01
    SQL query resultsData supplied by teammates
  2. 02
    Report interface & generationMy implementation work
  3. 03
    Formatted spreadsheetsState- and domain-specific requirements

The work replaced manual report preparation with an automated workflow.

Angular 11 / TypeScript / RxJS / SCSS / Python / Flask

Role & dates →

Other engineering work

Software portfolio →
Independent software

Podcast Dynamite

A podcast discovery and catalog application. RSS ingestion and de-duplication; c. 2016–2021, revived 2026.

Angular / RxJS / Spring Boot / jOOQ / PostgreSQL

Project overview →
In development

Scrabble Explorer

Interfaces with an LLM to turn natural-language requests into complex queries against a game database containing more than 60,000 records.

Recent trajectory

Full timeline →

  1. Independent Software Engineer and Product Developer; Sitzmark: Creator / Full-Stack Engineer.

  2. Independent film production and personal software projects (Zephyr, 2023–24; Podcast Dynamite, 2023).

  3. Software Engineer, Full Stack · AuditBoard.