Bjorn Roche

I am an engineering leader and currently Head of Engineering at Rutter. Rutter is a unified API for financial and commerce data that simplifies data access for companies like AirWallex, Mercury, and Parafin.

Prior to that, I was as SVP Engineering at GIPHY. At the time, GIPHY served about 10 billion pieces of content per day to partners including Meta, TikTok and more. It was purchased in 2020 by Meta and in 2023 by Shutterstock.

Before working at GIPHY and becoming a manager, I made a living developing software as a contractor. Almost all this work involved digital audio. My claim to fame was probably Mantis which was the first digital audio editor that could record, mix and apply effects in a web browser, but I worked on other interesting things, too.

Throughout my career, I learned a lot about the nuances of digital audio, writing software for digital audio processing, managing teams, and running an engineering department. I created this blog because writing helps me think through complex problems, so I mostly write about the kinds of issues I deal with every day as an engineering manager and leader. Although I think AI is a powerful tool, I do not use AI for writing this blog because I want to completely think through the problems myself.

I do use AI to come up with the images. Specifically, I use the image of a red panda working through the same kinds of problems I work through because I always love seeing the Red Panda when I visit the zoo with my kids.