Carter Price

Software Engineer

I build software for systems that touch the physical world — and ship AI products end to end.

About

I started in mechanical engineering and ended up writing software, which turned out to be the useful path: most of my career has been spent on systems where code has to survive contact with physical reality — vision rigs on live production lines, robots that have to be right about where things are, test systems that gate whether a vehicle ships.

These days I build AI products end to end. At Inflight I'm the first engineering hire, working across an LLM evaluation harness, agent tooling, and the analytics that tell us what any of it costs. At YCU I'm the sole engineer on a consumer app that's live on the App Store — billing, content safety, releases, all of it.

The through-line is the same either way: own the whole system, understand the constraint that actually binds, and ship the thing.

Based in Reno, NV. Outside work: mountain biking, skiing, and the usual over-engineering of personal projects.

Selected work

  • YCU

    Consumer product · Jan 2026 — Present

    YCU

    Sole engineer on a live iOS, Android and web product — dual billing, LLM content safety, 50+ App Store releases.

    • React Native
    • Expo
    • Next.js 16
    • Supabase
    • Stripe
    • Apple IAP
    • Turborepo
  • Real-time multi-camera vision for battery cell sorting

    Vision · 2022 — 2023

    Real-time multi-camera vision for battery cell sorting

    Inline vision that measures, reads and classifies every cell on a live production line, at line rate.

    • C++
    • GigE Vision
    • OpenCV
    • Multi-GPU
    • Laser triangulation
    • OCR
  • Autonomous forklift pallet detection and pose estimation

    Robotics · 2019

    Autonomous forklift pallet detection and pose estimation

    A zero-to-one perception pipeline — self-collected data through to the 6-DoF pose a trajectory planner can actually use.

    • Python
    • PyTorch
    • ResNet
    • RGB-D
    • ROS
    • Object detection

Experience

  • Jun 2025 — Present

    Software Engineer · Inflight

    first engineering hireRemote

    • Built an offline LLM evaluation harness using LLM-as-judge across five quality dimensions; drove seven tuning iterations over a 36-PR, 33-repo corpus, lifting design guides 4.06 → 4.61 and code guides 4.22 → 4.55.
    • Instrumented LLM analytics across the Claude proxy and guide agents — multi-turn traces plus a per-user token ledger with effective-dated pricing and org-level spend attribution.
    • Shipped an AI workspace assistant with tool calling, streaming, and hybrid vector + keyword retrieval behind a feature-flagged rollout.
    • Built agent-driven visual PR review on playwright-mcp with agentic preview spin-up across six language ecosystems; published the company Claude Code plugin and MCP server.
    • Sole engineer alongside the CTO across a TypeScript/Hono/Bun API, a React web app, and a SwiftUI macOS client.
    • TypeScript
    • Hono
    • Bun
    • React
    • SwiftUI
    • Anthropic API
    • MCP
    • RAG
    • PostHog
  • Jan 2026 — Present

    Lead Engineer · YCU

    profit-share partnership

    • Sole engineer on a live consumer app: Expo/React Native for iOS and Android plus Next.js 16, on a Turborepo/pnpm monorepo backed by Supabase.
    • Built LLM safety classification for user-generated content — group chat, video and challenge comments — with an admin moderation queue.
    • Implemented dual billing across Stripe and Apple IAP with trials, entitlements, and partner codes.
    • Owned Apple App Review compliance across 50+ releases; live on the App Store.
    • React Native
    • Expo
    • Next.js
    • Supabase
    • Stripe
    • Apple IAP
    • Turborepo
  • Feb 2025 — Jun 2025

    Staff Software Engineer, Manufacturing Test · Figure

    San Jose, CA

    • Built the base manufacturing test framework for humanoid robot production.
    • Automated actuator end-of-line testing.
    • Modeled capacity and resource planning across production lines.
    • Python
    • Test automation
    • Robotics
    • Manufacturing
  • Jul 2022 — Feb 2025

    Redwood Materials

    Reno, NV

    Software Engineering Manager Aug 2024 — Feb 2025

    • Led the controls architecture team; set engineering standards and tooling.
    • Drove the control system rollout for a cathode active material plant.

    Staff Software Engineer Nov 2023 — Aug 2024

    • Built advanced process control for non-linear dynamic variables.
    • Led sensing hardware and software integration.

    Sr. Software Engineer Jul 2022 — Dec 2023

    • Built proprietary inline vision for real-time quality inspection on a live production line.
    • Developed metrology for copper foil equipment.
    • Optimized recycling sorter software.
    • C++
    • Python
    • Computer vision
    • Process control
    • Metrology
    • EtherCAT
  • Mar 2021 — Jun 2022

    Sr. Software Engineer · Tesla

    Reno, NV

    • Built high-voltage controller functional testers for vehicle production lines, improving cycle time, robustness and coverage.
    • Owned system architecture and test specifications across multiple vehicle test platforms.
    • Served as scrum master for a five-person cross-functional team.
    • Python
    • Test systems
    • CAN
    • Manufacturing
  • Mar 2019 — Mar 2021

    Automation & Robotics R&D · Georgia-Pacific

    • Trained a deep learning object detector for autonomous forklifts.
    • Built a drone RGB + thermal computer vision pipeline for industrial asset anomaly detection, combining clustering with deep learning detectors.
    • Developed a ROS-based multi-robot sensor system streaming visual, thermal, acoustic and gas data to AWS.
    • Python
    • PyTorch
    • OpenCV
    • ROS
    • AWS
    • Deep learning
  • Aug 2018 — Jun 2020

    Graduate Research Assistant · Georgia Tech — RICAL

    • Used mobile robots and drones for rapid 3D scanning of construction sites to monitor build progress.
    • Built real-time offshore crane visualization in Unity driven by live encoder data.
    • ROS
    • SLAM
    • Point clouds
    • Unity
    • C++
  • Jul 2016 — Jun 2018

    Field Application Engineer · Dynamic Solutions

    Irvine, CA

    • Engineered custom and standard automation solutions for biotech, industrial and defense customers, including nuclear and extreme environments.
    • Sized and selected precision motion control systems.
    • Provided pre- and post-sale support across SCARA and 6-axis collaborative arms, controllers, drives, machine vision, linear and rotary motors, industrial PCs and HMIs.
    • Motion control
    • Robotics
    • Machine vision
    • SolidWorks

Education

  • 2018 — 2020

    Georgia Institute of Technology

    MS Computer Science

    Specialization: Robotics & Perception

  • 2011 — 2016

    California Polytechnic State University

    BS Mechanical Engineering

    Concentration: Mechatronics

Skills

Skills I use across AI products, full-stack delivery, and physical systems.

AI & LLM Systems

LLM evaluation & LLM-as-judge rubrics · Prompt engineering · Agent & tool-calling architectures · MCP · RAG (vector + keyword) · LLM observability & cost attribution · Anthropic API · PostHog

Software

TypeScript · Python · Swift/SwiftUI · Go · C++ · React · Next.js · React Native/Expo · Hono/Bun · Node · Linux

Data & Infrastructure

Supabase/Postgres (schema design, RLS, migrations) · Docker · GitHub Actions · Railway · Cloudflare Workers · Trigger.dev · Ansible

Product & Delivery

End-to-end feature ownership · Stripe & Apple IAP billing · App Store release & review compliance · Product analytics · Feature flags · Agile/scrum

ML & Perception

PyTorch · Keras · scikit-learn · OpenCV · Cognex · Computer vision · DL object detection · Sensor fusion

Robotics

ROS · SLAM · Path & motion planning · Forward & inverse kinematics · Point clouds (PCL) · RGB-D · LIDAR · Thermal · Laser profilometry

Controls & Systems

Feedback control (linear & non-linear) · Advanced process control · Systems modeling · MATLAB/Simulink · EtherCAT · CAN · Modbus

Test & Manufacturing

Functional test framework design · EOL test automation · Metrology · Vision system design · Motion control · Robot programming (UR, Precise) · SolidWorks CAD

Contact

Open to conversations about AI product work, perception and robotics, or manufacturing systems — full-time or consulting.