We strive to disrupt.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a team with more experience in AI, IoT, cloud and mobile. We’re the brains behind Amazon Alexa, AWS, and Samsung SmartThings, iconic platforms connecting billions of devices and consumers across the globe. Now, we’re focusing our energies on building the applied AI + IoT platform that enables enterprises to disrupt their industries. 

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Our Founders

 
Alex-Hawkinson

 

Alex Hawkinson
Founder & CEO

Disrupted Consumer IoT and Smart Home

Alex founded one of the first, and largest, Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, SmartThings, in 2012. This revolutionary technology transformed physical homes into intelligent systems, enabling a safer, simpler, and more entertaining life.

Acquired by Samsung in 2014, under Alex's leadership SmartThings became a global platform with more than 150 million users and over 1 billion connected devices across 88 countries. This innovative platform attracted more than 250,000 developers and device creators to develop unique solutions for every aspect of consumer life, from security and peace of mind to energy management to entertainment.

SmartThings isn’t Alex’s only brainchild. The experienced tech entrepreneur and business executive founded and operated multiple companies over the course of more than 25 years. Alex’s product and business-building experience, plus his expertise across IoT, AI, SaaS and cloud-based software, and mobile applications led him to create BrightAI.

As a co-founder of BrightAI, Hawkinson works with large enterprises to drive the technological transformation of their businesses, with a particular focus on leveraging the power of IoT to digitize physical operations, and then infusing intelligence into these environments with AI.

Hawkinson serves on the board of directors at CSC ServiceWorks, iFit, Latham Pools, One Tap Away, and Mural 365. Hawkinson also serves on the Advisory Council of the College of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. These companies reach more than 100 million consumers with essential services and are pushing forward the frontiers of IoT and AI into the physical world. 

 
Robert-Parker

 

Robert Parker

Disrupted Voice Assistants & Cloud

Robert has engineered some of today’s biggest life-changing innovations. From Amazon Alexa to Fire TV and Prime Music, Robert has disrupted everyday consumer life with voice assistants and entertainment technology. After serving as the Director of Engineering at Amazon for five years, Robert became the CTO of SmartThings, leading the company’s product and engineering teams, while building the proprietary platform.

From SmartThings, Robert teamed up with Alex to develop the newest transformative platform, BrightAI. As a co-founder, Robert develops the technology that makes industry disruption and extraordinary growth opportunities possible.

Prior to creating groundbreaking technologies, Robert spent 18 years as a general manager at Microsoft. As an industry-awarded and recognized technical leader, he holds more than 20 patents of his own.

 
Nathan-Hanks

 

Nathan Hanks

Disrupted Local Marketing & Music Promotion

Nathan's career has been driven by his love of technology and entrepreneurship. From ReachLocal to Music Audience Exchange (MAX), this tech business leader has disrupted industries like local marketing and music promotion.

While other companies were busy trying to develop the next great search engine, Nathan set his sights on securing search listings for small businesses to help them unlock new customer streams and revenue growth from digital. As the co-founder and president of ReachLocal, Nathan scaled the company to 24,000 clients in 15 countries, 2,200 team members, and a half-billion dollars in annual revenue.

From ReachLocal, Nathan moved on to make his mark on the music promotion industry, leading a team of engineers, data scientists, music professionals, and media experts to revolutionize music sponsorship for the digital age. Since its inception in 2014, MAX has connected more than 500 top music acts with a roster of leading global brands, delivering over 70 million dollars in sponsorship deals to breakthrough artists.

To fulfill his passion for applying business and technology to drive society forward, Nathan supports a range of companies as a board member, advisor, and investor. He currently serves as board director at iD Tech, the leader in STEM education with 700 Certified Tech Rockstars coaching 60,000 kids and teens annually in coding, game dev, robotics, design, and math. Students learn online year-round and on-campus during the summer at MIT, Stanford, and 150 other top universities.

Previously, Nathan was a director at Quartet Health, a Google Ventures-backed technology company working to improve the mental health system. Nathan has also been an early advisor and investor in more than two dozen companies, including Noble Money (building inflation-resistant currency), SmartThings (smart home platform), and Parade Ventures (seed fund supporting tech entrepreneurs).

 
Douglas-Burman

 

Douglas Burman

Disrupted Consumer & Industrial Spaces

Doug has been pushing the boundaries of the value that can be delivered through connectivity and automation for more than 17 years. His passion for hands-on creation and team enablement has created the technology and platforms that have disrupted the consumer and industrial spaces. 

At the beginning of his career, Doug created solutions and consulted in the startup space for green energy solutions, medical devices, and power grid companies. After developing engineering solutions and pushing forward new standards in the industrial automation and smart grid space, Doug became interested in shaping the evolution of the consumer at-home experience. 

Doug joined the SmartThings team early in the company’s journey. He innovated first-party devices, the realization of an open-device ecosystem, and a security-hardened platform. After the acquisition by Samsung, Doug became Vice President of Engineering, shaping the production of Samsung IoT products and integrations with industry leaders.

Through his position on the board of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (formerly known as the Zigbee Alliance), he worked to mold the future of consumer smart homes through industry standardization, which was backed by the largest Internet of Things brands.

Propelled by the belief that technology could do more, Doug joined Alex and Robert on their BrightAI venture, delivering impact to not just one consumer, but to millions of people at once. As a BrightAI co-founder, Doug leads an engineering organization that infuses innovative intelligence capabilities into our physical surroundings.

Our Purpose

To transform anything in the physical world into the digital world, infuse intelligence and control where there was none, and unlock unimagined possibilities for growth and social good.

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Why the Moment Is Now

Today, it’s possible for large, traditional businesses to become data-driven digital operating systems of their own. We are living in a time where you can now access and adopt solutions that were once only an option for multi-billion dollar companies.

Engineer with us.

If you’re interested in disrupting analog industries, check out our available openings.

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Recipient of the BrightAI Spark Award

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Barry Andersen leads by example and is a natural mentor to others. He joined BrightAI in May 2021. His colleagues know him as being flexible and quick to resolve critical issues. He is a software engineer driven to create highly usable, extensible software solutions while embracing best practices in software development. Barry describes himself as passionate about embedded software development and emerging IoT technologies.

Barry Andersen

Staff Engineer

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Pepe is pragmatic, passionate and always willing to help, “a technical powerhouse” who applies his craft to new technical domains. He has a BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering as well as a Master’s in Electrical Engineering. What interests him about AI is the scale of problems. He has several roles including cloud maintenance and development, and implementing new solutions to support operations.

Pepe Barbe

Software Engineer

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Recognized for his hands-on, 'get-it-done' approach, Kiran Bharwani's pioneering technology leadership skills are driving BrightAI's efforts to deliver cutting-edge solutions. With an impressive 25-year track record in ADAS, Autonomous Driving, and Functional Safety, Kiran's expertise in delivering high-quality solutions, particularly in life-critical contexts, is unmistakable. His extensive proficiency in assembling high-performing teams, driving innovation, and successfully bringing products to market plays a pivotal role in propelling BrightAI towards excellence and fostering innovation.

Kiran Bharwani

Chief Technology Officer

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BrightAI appealed to Luke because of its potential to make an impact and the ways AI can be used to solve “unsolvable” problems. He loves helping with challenging issues and being hands-on in writing code. He is looked up to as a leader and someone people turn to for advice and consultation on ideas. Luke currently manages the Cloud and DevOps teams and is responsible for the performance, availability, and security of cloud services.

Luke Bredeson

Director of Engineering

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Sam is the go-to person for web technology at BrightAI. Within 8 months, he was voted in the top three for being the “absolute most impressive teammate”. He has a similar impact with customers for whom he delivers dashboards that drive their new AI tools. He enjoys the freedom a start-up gives. It means he can problem-solve faster and have more influence over the technology he innovates with.

Sam Carlton

Staff Engineer

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Albert Carr has been at BrightAI since November 2020. He has been named as one of the Top 3 “absolute most impressive teammates” by colleagues for his ability to juggle multiple tasks. A mechanical engineer, his skills deliver many of the prototype demonstration models shown to customers – most emerging from Albert’s home garage. Many of his designs are in production and he says it’s one of the most fulfilling parts of his role.

Albert Carr

Director of Hardware and Manufacturing

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Emily is a seasoned UX Designer with over 10 years of experience in IoT. Her passion for creating seamless user experiences and building new products shines through in her work, where she expertly combines technology and human interaction. She is a graduate of Web Design and Interactive Media.

Emily Dubow

Lead UX Designer

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With a proven track record of success in launching and nurturing start-ups, Erin brings a unique perspective to every project she undertakes. At BrightAI, Erin played a pivotal role in shaping the company's trajectory, employing her organized approach to establish a solid foundation for our business operations from inception. As the driving force behind our digital marketing efforts, Erin leads with creativity and precision to amplify our brand presence across diverse platforms.

Erin Dudley

Director of Marketing

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Based in Minnesota, Graham Ferris is known as Bright AI’s own Swiss army knife – he’s well-liked, flexible, fits in where he is needed and makes an immediate impact on projects. He was attracted to BrightAI for the chance to develop exciting projects. He studied electrical engineering and joined BrightAI in January 2022.

Graham Ferris

Senior Software Engineer

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Logan is a software engineer with a passion for cloud and AI technologies. His role involves designing, planning, building, deploying, and managing BrightAI’s cloud infrastructure and associated applications. He shares the company’s commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technologies and enjoys working in a dynamic start-up environment, where there's never a dull moment.

Logan Gants

Software Engineer

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Gloria Ge

Engineering

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Bryce, a Computer Engineering graduate, has excelled in firmware design, ASIC validation and application development. A protocol expert, he has designed multiple Smart Grid protocols and implemented many others. He has also designed extensive firmware validation processes and supporting infrastructure (code/tests). He developed a successful open-source webOS application for streaming a personal music collection with 100,000+ downloads.

Bryce Geiser

Staff Engineer

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Having joined BrightAI in December 2021, Ben Godding has the uncanny ability to mix taking chances with new tools and technologies alongside showing restraint and focus in solving the problem at hand. He is highly self-sufficient and motivated by the drive to make products that improve speed to market without sacrificing quality. An engineering graduate, he invents in his spare time which gives him a vast skill set including versatility and the ability to think outside of the box.

Ben Godding

Staff Engineer

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Ryan exemplifies the impact that a strong tech lead can have on a solution integration, cutting through previous challenges to bring everything together in a pragmatic way. He was one of the top three “absolute most impressive teammates”, nominated by his colleagues. Testimony to his record as an inventor, he has approximately 100 patents to his name.

Ryan Goss

Staff Engineer

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Ashish Gupta has a PhD in Machine Learning and Computer Vision and has been working in ML for 12 years. He has researched, developed, and delivered innovative AI solutions in automotive, medical, construction, and home services technology spaces as an individual contributor, subject expert, and team lead. He believes the revolutionary benefits of AI can save lives and money in the infrastructure industry and is excited to realize his ML models for BrightAI.

Ashish Gupta

Sr. Engineer, ML

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Pinar is a seasoned finance professional and an engineer by training, having spent her 20+ year career in infrastructure investment, project finance, business development, and project controls for complex industrial capital projects before joining BrightAI. She enjoys combining quantitative skills and analysis with the commercial, operational, and strategic aspects of a business. 

Pinar Akgun Gursoy

Chief Financial Officer

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Top of the chart for her work ethic and ability to build trust and strong relationships, Golda Hartman is passionate about technology. Golda helped grow tech companies such as ReachLocal, MAX and Yext and managed multi-million dollar departments. Her expertise includes marketing, developing talent, and leading organizations. Before her illustrious career in the technology arena, Golda worked in Pediatrics at the Mayo Eugenio Litta Children’s Hospital after qualifying as a Doctor of Medicine.

Golda Hartman

Chief People Officer

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Chris Herbig’s ability to connect and build trustworthy relationships with customers at all levels is his superpower. He brings an “all hands to the pump” start-up mentality to problems, working with clients to solve their most complex challenges together. These include navigating through digital transformations, migrating old applications to the cloud, creating visions for new products and bringing them to market, and delivering software in more innovative and agile ways.

Chris Herbig

VP, Platform Services

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Xavier Higa

Technical Engineer

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Logan has a diverse working background in technology, with a personal interest in Linux systems and deployment automation. At BrightAI, he works in technical support. He loves exploring different aspects of a problem when finding solutions. Logan also enjoys working with a team with a wide range of backgrounds. He is most interested in seeing the applications people find for AI and how it affects their lives.

Logan Holmes

Technical Operations Engineer

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John is described as “fantastic to work with” and someone who can handle anything thrown at him. His colleagues say he is thoughtful and caring. He has over 15 years of Product, Quality Assurance, and Project Management experience. Results-driven, John is highly skilled in managing dynamic, fast-moving, cross-functional teams. He fosters a creative, collaborative environment to find quality solutions to difficult problems.

John Hutto

Manager, Supply Chain & Procurement

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Mark has strong product thinking on customer value that lands trust with customers. He excels in product leadership, knowledge of BrightAI solutions, managing the nuances of communications with stakeholders, and guiding the team in product feature development. Mark has over 20 years of Product Management and Design and UX experience with consumer products and services.

Mark Jaremko

VP, Product

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Based in Tuscon, Arizona, Jacob Kromer is known for his ability to spin up quickly and deliver under pressure. A computer technician with over 14 years of experience, his background is in audio engineering. He formerly worked for Family Life Radio as a Broadcast IT Specialist and attended the technical school of the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Jake Kromer

Technical Operations Engineer

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Kyle is an engineering leader who is not afraid of being hands-on and loves solving complex problems. He harnesses his insatiable curiosity to find the best ways to merge hardware, software and experiences to deliver AI that transforms businesses across multiple industries. Kyle has more than fifteen years of experience in software engineering and architecture with expertise in developing mobile and cloud platforms at scale.

Kyle Leneau

SVP, Engineering

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Nancy is an influential AI and metaverse industry leader known for her fearless approach to accelerating AI commercial adoption across real-world industries. She’s leading our product vision to build “Blue Collar” AI copilots for the 2 billion frontline workforce. Focusing on infrastructure services industries, this could solve the skilled labor shortage and sustainability crisis. Named a Woman of AI Leadership by Venturebeat, she serves as an advisory board member for the International Women of Influence Network.

Nancy Li

EVP, Growth & Strategy

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Mason’s greatest passion is for building robust, maintainable, and enjoyable iOS and web-based applications for companies ranging from Fortune 500s to start-ups. In charge of four client software teams, he has over 20 years of experience leading and developing mobile and web-based projects. Mason worked with server-side scripting technologies which later evolved to mature frameworks, such as Java and .NET backends.

Mason Lyngby

Director of Engineering

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Jon Magnuson was drawn to BrightAI to work on building cutting-edge technology from the ground up and see it mature into something that positively impacts peoples' everyday lives. His vision is that AIoT will further connect the physical world to the digital one, and will soon enlighten and inform us about the world we live in at a much deeper level than we could have ever imagined.

Jon Magnuson

Engineering Manager

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Joshua began his career with technology in the US military. A graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas, he joined BrightAI because he believes the position is a natural fit for his growth as an engineer. He provides custom Linux-based systems for embedded devices. Known as a hard worker and strong contributor who makes an immediate impact, what interests him most about AI is the potential in the market for creating new products.

Joshua Mills

Senior Engineer

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Pat considers the most exciting part of his role to be working with different technical domains. He is most interested to see how AI will transform everyday life and “really disrupt the status quo”. He drives system architecture and product direction while writing embedded software. As a tech lead, he helps drive priority, staffing resources, and technical leadership across all BrightAI verticals.

Patrick Nelsen

Director of Engineering

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Sean is always thinking of better ways of doing things, improving efficiency, and reducing costs. He is responsible for the architecture, implementation, and maintenance of the entire cloud infrastructure, developer tooling, and automation. He enjoys applying his practical skills and expertise to create positive change in the world. He speaks both Vietnamese and Japanese.

Sean Nguyen

Staff Dev Ops Engineer

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Emily brings ambition and initiative to BrightAI. She has worked on autonomous aircraft, smart devices and machine-learning solutions and is known for the design and development of technological solutions. These include an inference model for camera shutter control and architecture to customize camera features based on user input and alarm state. Emily also developed a prototype for a smart home product using Apple Homekit and designed a strategy for creating a Homekit-compliant application.

Emily Park

Senior Software Engineer

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Tyler’s title belies what his colleagues know him as—a “jack of all trades”—with tenacity in his attention to detail. His patience and understanding enable him to help teams work together to solve problems. Tyler enjoys working with diverse companies, helping them overcome technical challenges and plans to keep challenging himself to expand his technical knowledge.

Tyler Rankin

Systems Applications Engineer

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Micah loves working with his colleagues solving issues and identifying the best solutions to complex problems. He’s known for his attention to detail, handling every aspect of a project with the same level of precision. He is interested in moulding AI solutions and using AI together with human creativity to bring tremendous value to society. Micah’s previous experience leading teams across a wide geographical area is a perfect fit for BrightAI’s remote teams.

Micah Roberts

Technical Program Manager

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Paul is a technical leader with over 25 years of experience in all aspects of software product development and deep expertise with new and established technologies. He builds customer-facing products through the development of high-performance teams. He is described as a brilliant product creator who gets the best out of his staff.

Paul Sahota

VP, Cloud

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Working above ground is still a novelty for Dan Scoville, who—alongside other BrightAI colleagues—worked on a submarine that explored the wreck of the Titanic. He spent most of his career designing, developing and testing products for international organizations. He has multiple patents. Dan’s strengths are in his product writing and communications tied to rigorous cost estimation and project management. He is a graduate of Electrical and Electronics Engineering.

Dan Scoville

VP, Platform Services

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Kevin is building cloud solutions that connect Edge devices, AI pipelines, and web/mobile clients. He believes AI offers promise in helping people to be more efficient and effective by allowing them to focus time and resources on solving problems that machines can't solve. Kevin loves to constantly learn, whether it's exploring new technologies, delving deeper into tech already familiar to him, or learning about the industries we serve. He has worked in IoT for the past six years and has 25+ years of experience in the tech industry.

Kevin Shuk

Senior Cloud Engineer

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Kevin enjoys creating things that make other people’s jobs easier.  He finds AI amazing and says the fact that you can give a machine a training dataset and it figures out the relations and patterns all by itself is “crazy” to him. His team uses AI in the pest control industry to enable companies to deal with these issues more efficiently and humanely. He enjoys the start-up atmosphere where what we create has a real impact on businesses and people's lives.

Kevin Spinar

Senior Cloud Engineer

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BrightAI is Sammi’s third experience with a start-up, attracting her because it’s not just AI for the sake of AI, but practical help for businesses. The advantages of working for a smaller company include trying her hand at different things and collaborating with people who she wouldn't traditionally get to work with in a big company. She is a front-end engineer but also does cloud work, and is learning different things every day.

Samantha Tafoya

Software Engineer

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Raphael Tessmer

Sr. Engineer, Robotics

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Kevin ensures BrightAI’s fleet of devices runs on a stable platform. He’s involved whether the discussion is hardware or software. What he loves most is wearing multiple hats on any given day, to help solve challenging problems. Kevin believes the AI space is a budding market ripe for rapid growth and hopes BrightAI can make a big splash in this arena.

Kevin Vanden Berge

Staff Engineer

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Brett has learned over 25+ years as a strategic business leader and Army Combat Veteran, the ability to work across disciplines and clients to drive channel and commercialization growth. This experience spanned startups to large corporations. He has always been drawn to technology and is getting BrightAI ready for the next phase of growth. Brett believes BrightAI excels in showing traditional companies how technology can transform their industries, truly solving world infrastructure problems, and delivering new value. 

Brett Worthington

EVP, Commercialization

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Susanne oversees BrightAI's international hardware and software teams, ensuring the integration of advanced AI and next-gen sensors. She brings deep expertise in product development to BrightAI's visual AI platform, developing multimodal AI that delivers unique insights across diverse commercial and industrial environments. She consistently delights customers with AI/IoT solutions that are simple and transformative.

Susanne Yang

Director of Product Management