Richard Gabriel

Technical Lead Engineer

Richard Gabriel

I build commerce platforms and lead the teams behind them. Full stack engineer with 20 years of experience in web applications, payments, and team leadership.

What I Work On

Commerce & Payments

Owning the full commerce platform — cart, order management, subscriptions, dunning, and multi-party payment flows. PCI DSS compliant (SAQ A).

Trust & Safety

Protecting the payment lifecycle — from transaction screening to lead quality.

Team Leadership

Running a team day-to-day — 1:1s, technical direction, and cross-functional collaboration in a Product/Design/Engineering triad.

Experimentation & Observability

Shaping how features get measured and rolled out — A/B testing, feature flagging, and analytics.

AI & Developer Experience

Championing AI adoption and building internal tooling that keeps engineering teams shipping with confidence.

Experience

Technical Lead Engineer

Trader Interactive

Rearchitected the commerce platform, built fraud prevention systems, and established experimentation and analytics practices. Leading a team in a Product/Design/Engineering triad while championing AI adoption across the organization. Promoted twice in under three years.

Senior Web Developer & IT Manager

Wake Industrial LLC

Led IT operations and web development, managing AWS environments and building internal applications. Built API-driven marketing integrations and managed large-scale ad campaigns, applying SEO and analytics to real engineering problems.

Founder & Lead Developer

Illuminati Karate, Inc.

Co-founded and ran a web development consultancy for 15 years. Owned every part of the business — client relationships, product strategy, architecture, development, and support. Grew from freelance work into a full-service shop delivering web applications and SEO-driven sites. Sold my stake to pursue the scale, collaboration, and growth that come from working on a team.

Skills & Technologies

Languages & Frameworks

  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • PHP
  • Vue.js
  • Nuxt
  • Node.js
  • NestJS
  • Laravel

Infrastructure & DevOps

  • AWS
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • Argo
  • GitHub Actions
  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • Linux

Payments & Commerce

  • Stripe
  • Braintree
  • PayPal
  • Plaid
  • Apple Pay
  • Google Pay
  • Kount 360

Experimentation & Analytics

  • Optimizely
  • LaunchDarkly
  • Adobe Analytics
  • Google Analytics
  • FullStory
  • SEO

Connect