Tom Colarusso

Experience

13+ years building software across fintech, automotive, and enterprise platforms.

Lead Full-Stack Engineer

Verivend·Mar 2025 – Present·Buffalo, NY (Hybrid)
  • Lead full-stack engineer on a fintech capital-raising and investor-management platform for private equity and venture capital deals; shipped 780+ merged pull requests and 560+ tickets across a .NET/C# backend and two Vue frontends.
  • Architected a multi-year Vue 2 to Vue 3, TypeScript, Vite, and Pinia migration of the entire investor platform, designing a proxy-routing system that ran both apps side-by-side for zero-downtime, incremental rollout across 15+ feature areas.
  • Authored .NET/C# backend endpoints, including async bulk-action infrastructure (dispatcher pattern, dependency injection, feature-flag gating), cross-org admin deal APIs, and end-to-end DB-to-API-to-UI features, alongside the Vue frontends that consume them.
  • Root-caused and resolved systemic production bug classes, including silent bulk-action failures, auth/session logout incidents, and a platform-wide timezone rendering defect.
  • Consolidated five workflow-item types onto shared platform abstractions, eliminating large-scale UI duplication and a recurring regression.
  • Implemented XSS/HTML sanitization across client and API layers and stood up a Datadog RUM/APM observability stack with global error handling and business-flow tracking.
  • Built CI/CD and developer-experience tooling, including ephemeral per-PR preview deployments, Storybook test infrastructure, and an automated AI-powered PR-review system.
  • Serve as the team's Claude Code power user and AI-development enabler, using its full feature set daily and building shared skills, subagents, MCP servers, and workflows that raise team-wide engineering velocity.

Engineering Manager

ACV Auctions·Apr 2023 – Mar 2025·Buffalo, NY
  • Managed two engineering teams (App Core and Search) totaling 10 direct reports, spanning developer enablement and search infrastructure for a leading automotive auction platform.
  • Directed the Search team building search capabilities on Elasticsearch and FastAPI, and the App Core team owning shared core applications, services, and developer-enablement tooling used across engineering.
  • Oversaw the company-wide replacement of New Relic with Datadog, cutting ~$1M in annual observability tooling costs.
  • Hired 12+ engineers as a hiring-committee member and promoted 2–3 team members, driving retention and career growth.
  • Partnered directly with product, design, data, and leadership to scope and deliver new features cross-functionally.

Team Lead, Frontend Platform

ACV Auctions·Jun 2022 – Apr 2023·Buffalo, NY
  • Defined ACV's org-wide frontend engineering standards, including framework selection (Vue.js), TypeScript typing, linting, and testing conventions, adopted by 100+ engineers company-wide.
  • Led the team that built and maintained an internal component library of 100+ reusable UI components, powering consistent product development across the shared frontend platform.
  • Established the frontend toolchain across Vue, Storybook, Figma, and Jenkins CI, standardizing how teams built, documented, and shipped UI.

Software Engineer

ACV Auctions·May 2017 – Jun 2022·Buffalo, NY
  • Rewrote a legacy AngularJS 1.x / PHP LAMP web application into a modern Vue.js 2 single-page app with full test coverage and modern best practices, delivered in under 6 months.
  • Built web applications using AngularJS, Vue.js, KnockoutJS, and PHP.
  • Developed real-time bidding features using PubNub within an event-driven architecture.
  • Tested features with Mocha and Jasmine, maintaining high code coverage and passing CI builds.
  • Supported production environments by deploying hotfixes in response to detected bugs.

API Developer

TCGplayer.com·Nov 2016 – May 2017·Syracuse, NY (Remote)
  • Developed a public-facing RESTful API following Microsoft REST API design guidelines and best practices.
  • Designed and implemented OAuth 2.0 API authentication, including third-party application integration.
  • Architected a new Umbraco CMS cloud project, defining solution architecture, branching, testing, and deployment strategy.

Software Architect (promoted from Senior Software Engineer)

Liazon (now WTW)·Oct 2015 – Nov 2016·Buffalo, NY
  • Designed new features and enhanced system architecture across a distributed platform built on MVC, NServiceBus, MSMQ, DTC, WebAPI, AngularJS, SQL Server, RavenDB, and Redis.
  • Provided architectural guidance to delivery teams on patterns and frameworks for new development initiatives.
  • Created internal tools and processes that supported feature delivery for 80+ developers.
  • Delivered training sessions on MSMQ, DTC, NServiceBus, AngularJS, CQRS, RESTful services, SOA, and Domain-Driven Design.
  • Strengthened core distributed-system components and infrastructure as part of the architecture team.

Software Engineer

Liazon (now WTW)·Jul 2014 – Oct 2015·Buffalo, NY
  • Developed a global benefits management web application using RESTful services and AngularJS in an Agile/Scrum environment.
  • Created RESTful services with .NET, Entity Framework, NServiceBus, and Castle Windsor IoC for dependency injection.
  • Built an AngularJS single-page application with custom services, controllers, and directives targeting mobile and desktop.
  • Conducted pair programming and code reviews to help team members meet sprint commitments.

Software Engineer I

ValueCentric·Jun 2012 – Jun 2014·Buffalo, NY
  • Designed, developed, tested, and deployed web applications and BI tools using Oracle 11g, ColdFusion, and JavaScript/jQuery.
  • Modernized legacy products with AJAX, jQuery, and CSS3, building a new reporting front-end.
  • Maintained and enhanced a web-based mobile application with SVG/Canvas charting, data grids, and PDF/Excel exports for iOS and Android.
  • Wrote SQL queries using PL/SQL, packages, stored procedures, and bind variables for pharmacy reporting data.