Christian Smith

I'm a programmer, researcher, and technical founder with nearly 25 years experience spanning early stage startups, enterprise, and academia. I love pair programming, explaining complex ideas, helping people discover new talents and building great teams.

Earlier in my career, after more than a decade as a generalist, I accidentally specialized in authentication, authorization, and security protocols while mashing up OAuth APIs. As an open source developer, I then authored and maintained early JavaScript implementations of OpenID Connect, JOSE, and Web Cryptography API. That labor of love led me to work at MIT on decentralized identity, personal data stores, and other privacy-enhancing technologies.

As a technical founder at Anvil Research and Stranger Labs, I have worked on dozens of uniquely challenging software projects using JavaScript alongside other languages like Clojure, Python, and Rust. My latest interests include knowledge graphs, database internals, temporal databases, matching algorithms, logic programming, federated social networks, library tech, and scientific data integration.

Most recently, I consulted at World Bank Group on applications of emerging technologies to climate markets. I am currently a Scientific Advisory Board member at CRIPT, a research platform for polymer scientists based at MIT, where I contribute to data architecture.

Message me for help with learning new skills, career transitions, tricky backend issues, or ongoing mentoring.