Seth Carstens
VP of Product Engineering | Financial Services Technology | Agile Leader
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Professional Summary
Tech-savvy leader across SDLC, cloud infrastructure, and product engineering — from startup founding teams to enterprise platforms serving millions.
Core Competencies
- Product Engineering
- Engineering Leadership
- VP of Product Engineering
- CTO
- Agile
- SCRUM
- SDLC
- Cloud Architecture
- AWS
- Cloudflare
- DevOps
- CI/CD
- Docker
- Platform Engineering
- SaaS
- CMS
- WordPress
- PHP
- MySQL
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- Node.js
- React
- API Design
- System Architecture
- AI-assisted Development
- Claude
- Cursor
- GitHub Copilot
- ChatGPT
- Cross-functional Leadership
- Hiring
- Mentorship
- Financial Technology
- Compliance
- Performance Optimization
Professional Experience
VP of Product Engineering
Apex Trader Funding Aug 2024 - Present
- Driving strategy, architecture, and execution behind one of the fastest-growing trader evaluation platforms in the industry.
- Lead cross-functional engineering, product, and infrastructure teams to deliver a secure, scalable, latency-optimized experience for hundreds of thousands of traders worldwide — platform reliability, Cloudflare edge innovation, compliance alignment, and new products that expand opportunity while protecting the business from operational and regulatory risk.
President
CCF Foundation Corp Nov 2019 - Present
- Managing business and operations for the nonprofit (active since 1996; 501(c)(3) incorporated 2019).
- Flagship Save-A-Christmas shopping event for foster kids; Youth Sports Initiatives via Seth’s Gym volleyball practices (YMCA-approved); community outreach and fundraising year-round.
Web Development Lead
Nextiva Dec 2023 - Aug 2024
- Led web development on Nextiva’s unified CX platform — voice, video, chat, social, and email — inside a 1,000–2,000 person software organization headquartered in Scottsdale.
Director, Board of Directors
Antenna Sites, Inc. Sep 2022 - Aug 2024
- Elected by shareholders to help guide the business and make sound decisions for employees, customers, and shareholders of a communications tower and wireless infrastructure company serving the Phoenix metro, rural Arizona, and mountain-top sites.
Chief Technology Officer
Web3 Pro Dec 2022 - Dec 2023
- Established and championed the vision for technological innovation and new products.
- Partnered with the executive team on engineering priorities; recruited and retained talent across disciplines and geographies; tightened engineering practices for velocity and predictability; worked closely with the CEO on investor relations and high-profile client interactions.
CTO
Titan X Dec 2021 - Nov 2022
- Provided technical leadership across the business — hiring and training engineering staff, onboarding the company to Agile SCRUM, aligning tech strategy with business goals, supervising infrastructure, selecting technology partnerships, monitoring KPIs and budgets, and communicating strategy to partners and investors.
Director of Technology
Meredith Corporation Jan 2018 - Jun 2021
- Directed and mentored 30+ engineers and four managers.
- Delivered a 0→1 multi-tenant CMS platform serving 1K+ editors and ~180M consumers.
- Highlights: migrated CMS REST endpoints to OAuth2; retained ~$1.5M in hosting fees via AWS optimization; reviewed 100+ PRs/week; ran SQL tables with 50M+ rows and a graph store with 1B+ records; cut cluster time 36+→10 minutes with CI/CD; scaled APIs to 90+ TPS / 7M+ transactions/day.
Director of Technology
Time Inc. Jun 2015 - Jan 2018
- Managed engineering teams, hosting, vendors, and support desk.
- Built editorial tools for thousands of writers and properties serving 10M+ user sessions.
- Drove OneCMS unification to reduce multi-CMS inefficiency, standardize front-end data for licensing/syndication, and train engineering talent on shared tools and skills.
Vice President of Technology
FanSided Jul 2014 - Jun 2015
- Grew the team from one to eight engineers plus managers, designed an enterprise-ready stack for the Time Inc sale, and led technology across 350+ WordPress sites including analytics and social.
- Reduced sprint-planning overhead, hardened security, and multiplied customer site visits while launching a dozen new products.
CEO & Founder
Sethmatics Inc. Sep 1997 - Jun 2015
- Founded a technology consulting company at age 14 covering training, networking, wiring, websites, marketing, and digital design.
- Specialized in website design and programming while operating alongside later full-time roles.
- Tagline: “Helping people speak Computer.”
Senior Software Development Engineer
Rapid Recovery Feb 2013 - Jul 2014
- Built website applications with Salesforce, Google Apps/Maps, and other APIs, plus iPhone and Android apps to improve company workflow models for high-speed refrigerant recovery operations.
Software Development Engineer
Anthem Education Group Jun 2010 - Feb 2013
- Reduced website content/server errors from 30% to 1% in five months.
- Merged eight website brands into one global brand on WordPress, saving ~$100K/year vs proprietary CMS.
- Improved page load from ~14s to ~6s.
- Managed intranet content for ~1,600 employees plus streaming video, live chat, analytics, A/B testing, and monitoring.
Technology Support Specialist
MBA Insurance Services Nov 2008 - Aug 2009
- Assisted with marketing and web-based sales materials, IT helpdesk tickets, CAT5 networking for an expanding office, and AMS360/CRM setup for personal lines insurance.
IT Program Manager
Sonoran National Insurance Group Oct 2007 - Nov 2008
- Managed implementation of new insurance programs requiring underwriting, training, and sales across direct and broker channels — with technology-driven workflow automation to keep the program running efficiently.
Sales Marketing Internship
The Horton Group Jun 2005 - Aug 2005
- Marketing new products and presenting complete case scenarios.
- IT development and education.
- Insurance sales on-the-job training at Horton Group (Marsh & McLennan Agency).
IT Support Specialist
Sonoran National Insurance Company Oct 2001 - Aug 2003
- Part-time role developing a small-business website (including SEO and downloadable forms), designing network layout and IT infrastructure, and maintaining PCs, printers, and other devices.
- Obtained an insurance license and sold personal lines.
IT Help Desk Technician
Empire Fire and Marine Mar 1998 - Oct 2000
- Part-time help setting up and maintaining PCs, printers, faxes, and other devices.
- Assisted with business-office setup during a move.
- Customer service and admin duties; designed national meetings calendar and electronic artwork for presentations.
Education
B.S. Computer Information Systems
Arizona State University, W. P. Carey School of Business 2002 - 2006
- Electrical Engineering → CIS pivot
- Graduated top of class
- Focus: SDLC, project management, databases
- W. P. Carey School of Business
High School Diploma
Desert Mountain High School, Scottsdale, Arizona 1998 - 2002
- 4.15 GPA · top of class
- Founded Sethmatics at 14
- Training, networking, websites
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Awards and Community
- Full-ride Leadership Scholarship → Cum Laude at ASU (2002 – 2006) — W. P. Carey School of Business, B.S. Computer Information Systems — the degree that caught up to the shop.
- FanSided Hall of Fame (2017) — Honored by FanSided for lasting impact as a founding technology leader.
- OneCMS for Meredith at scale (2018 – 2021) — Directed 30+ engineers building a multi-tenant creator platform for 1K+ editors and ~180M consumers.
- Rapid Recovery Honorary Alumni (2020) — Honored by Rapid Recovery as Honorary Alumni for contributions to the company and its people.
- YMCA youth sports coach — free clinics every week (Year-round) — Volunteer coach for free youth sports clinics every week, all year — YMCA-approved Seth’s Gym volleyball practices through CCF Foundation’s Youth Sports Initiatives.
- Save-A-Christmas for foster kids (Ongoing) — Flagship CCF Foundation shopping event — one of the achievements I’m proudest of.
- President, CCF Foundation (2019 – Present) — Nonprofit leadership for foster family support, community outreach, and the Youth Sports / YMCA partnership behind those free clinics.
- WordCamp Phoenix & AZ WordPress (2010s) — Organizer, speaker, and meetup lead — teaching developers and building the local WP community.