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possibilities/river.md

Created March 12, 2026 19:36
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river.md

Hi River team,

The Senior Software Engineer role stands out for pairing React product work with real security and correctness, plus your public proof of reserves and open financials. I am enthusiastic about Bitcoin and your goal of helping people take ownership of their money. I am curious how you split concerns between React and Elixir, how you model custody and transfers, and what guardrails you use for web security in high-risk flows like auth, funding, and withdrawals. I would also love to learn how you validate changes that touch balances and what you publish internally to keep risks visible.

From 2020 to 2025 at Vermont Mutual Insurance, I led the modernization of legacy tools and customer apps into performant React SPAs and drove UI development across teams of 10 to 20 engineers and designers. I partnered closely with design, pushed for UX-first development, and shipped features users praised. I also led a generative AI pilot that evaluated tools, gathered feedback from internal users, and advised on adoption strategy. That mix of product focus, cross-team planning, and turning ambiguity into shipped work maps well to owning features end to end, writing tested code, and giving clear reviews.

Before that at Versal from 2012 to 2020, I built front-end features for education products, designed and maintained third-party APIs, a CLI-based SDK, and libraries, and supported customers integrating white-label products and APIs. I learned to define clean contracts, write clear docs, and collaborate across functions to deliver reliable integrations. Earlier at Capsule in 2011 to 2012 and LibraryThing from 2008 to 2010, I worked full stack, integrating third-party services and building an import engine while optimizing large-scale SQL queries. I created Meteorite, the original package manager for Meteor.js, and built ArtHack AI. That background fits building React features and APIs that need to be safe, clear, and maintainable.

I work primarily in React and TypeScript. I have not used Elixir in production yet and I am ready to learn it quickly. I like small, accountable teams, shipping weekly, and keeping interfaces simple. I care about web security fundamentals and would enjoy trading notes on threat modeling for account security, session handling, CSRF, CSP, and rate limiting. My resume is at https://mikebannister.vercel.app/. If this looks useful, I would love to help ship features at River while contributing to a culture of clarity and ownership.

Best, Mike Bannister

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