Naresh Kumar

Software Engineer & Technical Leader

Software engineer and technical leader with 20+ years across support, testing, and project and release leadership at Dell, Cerner, Cognizant and VMware. I translate customer needs into requirements and system designs, and explain technical decisions to nontechnical stakeholders. Today I build and run platforms for endurance events and small businesses with AI coding agents.

St. Louis, MissouriPlatformsDelivery leadershipQuality & securityAI-assisted engineering

Authorized to work in the United States, India and New Zealand

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What I do

Understand needs and design systems
Translate customer needs into requirements and system designs, then build and run platforms such as Big’s Backyard Ultra, GVRAT and the Circumpolar Race Around the World (CRAW).
Project and release leadership
Explain technical choices to nontechnical stakeholders and coordinate delivery across teams, drawing on project and release work at VMware and Cognizant.
Quality, security and infrastructure
Regression, performance and security testing; access control, email authentication, Cloudflare and server hardening.
AI-assisted engineering
Building with AI coding agents under a reviewed, tested process, and running local open models for confidential work.

Experience

Bedrock Sandals

2012–now

Fractional CTO · Montana · remote

Fractional CTO since August 2026: lead technology across systems, infrastructure, security, operations, data and delivery; turn business needs into automation and AI-enabled workflows; coordinate vendors and QA, hands-on where needed.
Infrastructure and security lead (2012 – 2026): zero-trust access, role-based permissions and hardware MFA across Google Workspace and Shopify Plus; DMARC, DKIM and SPF; app audits, customer data protection and PCI-DSS hardening. Zero incidents in six years.
Built a regression suite for content, data, security and performance; wrote the AI-use policy; building a repair tracker.

Founder and principal consultant

2014–now

Independent practice · St. Louis since 2021; New Zealand and India before

Big’s Backyard Ultra, technology partner and advisory board member · 2020 – now

Built the affiliation system supporting 720+ races, with backyard ultras held in 82 countries.
Build and operate the website, members platform, race catalogue, results and certificates.
Administer WordPress sites and VPS infrastructure, managing updates, databases, user access, DNS, SSL/TLS and performance optimization.
Secure and maintain site operations through Cloudflare, WAF rules, server hardening, offsite backups, recovery testing, monitoring, incident response, QA and documentation.

GVRAT, partner and sole platform builder · 2020 – now

Built GVRAT solo in under a week during lockdown in India. Planned for 2,000 runners; 19,600+ joined from 70+ countries. Built activity processing, maps, certificates and email communications; RunSignup handled registration and payments.
Provided written participant support for logging miles, corrections and navigation. Added new challenges as runners finished early; 12M+ miles logged in the first four months. Now run the annual Great Virtual Race Across the USA (Transcon).

Circumpolar Race Around the World (CRAW), lead engineer and sole developer · 2020 – 2024

Owned a global virtual team race end to end for four years as its sole engineer: product design, architecture, delivery and operations, from Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell’s concept to launch in September 2020. Served 54,949 registrations from 7,329 participants in 48 countries.
Built the results engine: ingested registrations and activity through the RunSignup API and computed standings in Google Apps Script for 635+ teams, each running independent per-region clocks that started on a team’s first logged mile and stopped at that region’s finish.
Ran production as systems engineer (WordPress on a self-managed VPS) and extended the 30,167-mile, 12-region course to 18 regions. Designed the runner passports, the region medals that assemble into a world map, and the finisher’s buckle.

Client work

Build client websites with AI coding agents under a spec-driven, reviewed and tested process, including Tunnel Hill 100 and a law practice’s client-intake site.
Built a portfolio for a six-day world record holder, including an interactive chart of all 1,140 laps of her record run.
Run local open models for confidential document summaries and financial analysis on client-controlled systems.
New Zealand (2014 – 2020): digital project manager at One Fat Sheep, an augmented-reality agency, and digital marketing consultant to Small Planet Sports.

VMware

2013–2014

Project manager · Palo Alto, California

Directed end-to-end testing and release for four global IT automation and product releases spanning at least 14 business units, coordinating about 30 people. All four shipped on time.
Standardised defect triage across business units and owned risk mitigation with the lead project managers.

Cognizant

2008–2013

Test lead to project lead · Nashville, Tennessee and Fairfield, California

Healthcare (2008 – 2012): test lead for an onshore and offshore team of 8; for Emdeon, now Change Healthcare, led functional, regression and acceptance testing, and significantly fewer defects reached its customers.
Copart: led testing of its projects with onshore and offshore teams.

Earlier

Cerner, now Oracle Health: Software test engineer, electronic health records (registration, scheduling, order entry, revenue cycle), 2006 – 2008
Dell: Technical support expert, enterprise (Bangalore): server troubleshooting on Windows, Linux and Unix; driver and wireless testing, 2004 – 2006

Selected projects

GVRAT

19,600+runners signed up
2,000originally planned
70+countries
12M+miles in four months

A virtual race built solo in under a week during lockdown, which has run every year since. It led to the Circumpolar Race Around the World (CRAW), a separate race: a 30,167-mile team relay around the world.

Activity processing · maps · certificates · email · RunSignup

Big’s Backyard Ultra

720+affiliated races
82countries
2020partner since

The affiliation system, members platform, race catalogue, results and certificates behind a global sport, on infrastructure I administer and secure.

WordPress · VPS · Cloudflare DNS and WAF · backups and monitoring

Pragmatic Programmer skill · open source, 2026

Guardrails for AI coding agents, with an A/B evaluation suite.

Leadership and impact

Freedom Seat Foundation

2016–now

Founder

Founded a tandem-cycling initiative against human trafficking: 17,000+ km across 15 countries, 500+ riders and $250,000 raised, with 100% going to partner organizations, including Tearfund New Zealand.
Led the 2019 Chennai to Hamburg expedition: 8,646 km across 13 countries with 180+ riders.
The documentary Freedom Seat (2021) won the Audience Award at the Ciclismo Classico Bike Travel Film Festival and was an Official Selection at Kendal Mountain Festival.

Speaker