Zach
Whitehead.
Software/ Commerce/ Hardware/ Aviation
15 years of shipping software for teams that make things. Marketplaces, storefronts, firmware, and the systems that connect devices to the business around them. Based in Austin, TX.
About
who / what / whyA decade of shipping for teams big and small: OpenPPG, Throwflame, RVshare, and a long tail of independents.
I was a founding engineer at RVshare, where the team went on to raise over $100M from firms like KKR. Since then I have split my time between small product shops and my own builds, writing the code, shaping the business, and staying close to hardware and aviation.
My edge is working across the whole stack a company has: the storefront, the firmware, the ops inbox, and the spreadsheet that keeps it all together. That range matters when the product spans checkout, telemetry, fulfillment, and field testing.
My first job was at Movable, building wrist-worn activity monitors with a sync client and cloud tools for reviewing movement and competition. It was wearable hardware before the Apple Watch existed.
Software
web / marketplaces / opsFifteen years of web products shipped into real businesses. Full-stack builds from the checkout page down to the admin panel the ops team actually uses.
Full-stack web apps
React, TypeScript, Rails, Node. Real features in production for small teams and the infrastructure to keep them up.
E-commerce & marketplaces
Storefronts, peer-to-peer rental flows, payments, and the trust and safety systems that keep both sides of a marketplace happy.
APIs & ops tooling
The internal admin panels, data pipelines, and integrations that keep orders moving and partners in sync.
Where the product gets real.
Sensor drivers, BLE stacks, OTA pipelines, state machines that survive bad batteries and worse weather. The code closest to the metal, shaped by the product and the business around it.
Hardware
pcbs / sensors / integrationBuilt on a workbench, shipped into the field.
Telemetry that survives 2,000 feet. Devices that keep working after the first hard landing and the second hot summer.
PCB design & prototyping
Schematic capture, PCB layout, BOM, and the first revs that prove out the idea before anyone commits to tooling.
Sensors & wireless
IMUs, GPS, BLE, LoRa, and the ESP32 and STM32 controllers behind them. Reading the world and keeping devices updated in it.
Systems integration
From the device firmware to the cloud telemetry to the admin view the support team opens at 2am. The full line, not just the board.
Aviation
the passion
Aviation keeps the bar honest.
Flying keeps me interested in telemetry, reliability, batteries, weather, and failure modes. It shows up in the way I think about firmware and hardware that have to work outside the lab.
Selected work
case studies
RVshare
CASE 01 →Peer-to-peer RV rental marketplace. Worked across payments, trust and safety, and search relevance during high-growth years.
OpenPPG
CASE 02 →Open-source electric paramotors. Firmware, Bluetooth telemetry, the storefront, and the global dealer network behind it.
Throwflame
CASE 03 →Consumer and industrial flamethrowers, plus the Thermonator robotic platform. Storefront, compliance flows, and fulfillment tooling.
Freelance roster
CONTACT →A decade of small businesses who needed one person to handle the code, the integration plan, and the messy handoff between software, devices, and operations.
Contact
say helloSmall team, messy problem, shipping deadline?
Best fit is a small team dealing with software, hardware, commerce, or an integration problem that cuts across all three. Email works.