Principal Software Engineer & Tech Lead · Chalfont, PA · Open to remote, hybrid, on-site & relocation

Robert Chyko

Engineering leader with 20 years solving complex problems with software — the last 11 in financial technology. Most recently Principal Software Engineer and Tech Lead for Fidelity Digital Assets, directing architecture across three distributed squads for an institutional wallet platform custodying $40B+ in crypto.

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20
years building software
11
years in fintech at Fidelity
$40B+
crypto custodied on platform led
Portrait of Robert Chyko

About

Technology leader. Product-minded engineer.

I believe the best products aren't just built with clean code — they're built by teams that master the intersection of user experience and technical architecture.

My background is hybrid: alongside deep engineering and technical leadership, I've served as a Product Owner and bring a grounding in Agile and Scrum. That lets me bridge business strategy and engineering execution, and focus on cultivating high-performing teams that deliver real business value.

01

Technical leadership

Architecting complex web ecosystems and mentoring engineering teams to hold a high bar for code quality and performance.

02

Product-minded engineering

Drawing on experience as a Product Owner and squad lead to keep teams aligned with product goals.

03

Team development

Mentoring engineers and fostering a culture of technical excellence and agility.

Selected work

01 — 02
Bass Thumb home screen showing the last catch and season challenges Bass Thumb personal bests and season stats Bass Thumb analytics: catches by time of day Bass Thumb map of logged catches
Independent venture · 2026 – present

Bass Thumb AI

Sole engineer on a consumer fishing app — taken from an exported low-code prototype to a production release on the App Store and Google Play.

  • Flutter & Dart on iOS and Android; Firebase and TypeScript Cloud Functions backend; Flutter Web admin console
  • Server-side AI pipeline across five product surfaces — OpenAI API and Vercel AI SDK, schema-validated output, model fallback, per-user token budgets and paid tiers
  • GitHub Actions CI/CD through signed Fastlane store releases; Claude Code as primary dev environment with agent runbooks, custom skills and MCP integrations
Flutter Firebase OpenAI Fastlane
Visit bassthumbai.com →
01 · REQUEST Transfer initiated
02 · POLICY
Approvals & keyset signing 2 of 3 approvers · role-based access
Hot wallet
Cold storage
03 · SETTLE · BTC ETH SOL LTC FIDD
Fidelity Digital Assets · 2022 – 2025

Institutional Wallet Platform

Tech lead for hot and cold storage custody of $40B+ in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Litecoin, as well as the FIDD stablecoin — directing technical strategy across three squads and leading the platform's frontend architecture.

  • TypeScript platform built on Angular, RxJS and NgRx — keysets, approval flows, role-based access, transfers, stablecoin and smart-contract support, real-time balance alerting
  • Set a shared code-review standard and common patterns across 3 independently shipping codebases
  • Owned the plan for quarterly PI planning across three globally distributed squads
Angular NgRx RxJS Nx

How I build

Directing AI agents, not just prompting them.

AI coding agents are my primary development environment. The skill that matters isn't the tool — it's writing conventions down once and enforcing them with hooks, skills and CI, so every agent works to the same standard without being re-told in a prompt.

  1. 2025

    GitHub Copilot at Fidelity

    AI pair programming in the editor at Fidelity Investments — in-line completion and code generation on enterprise codebases.

  2. Spring 2026

    In-IDE agents

    Gemini agents in Android Studio and VS Code for scoped edits, refactors and test scaffolding while taking over a prototype codebase.

  3. Early summer 2026

    Agent-first IDE

    Google Antigravity for longer, multi-file tasks. Agent instructions moved out of chat and into the repo, shared across every tool.

  4. Summer 2026 — present

    Claude Code

    Daily driver, with the repository itself carrying the conventions, guardrails and workflows agents follow.

01

Conventions in the repo

CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md hold coding conventions, cross-repo consequences and runbooks — one source every agent reads.

02

Automated guardrails

Hooks auto-format and run unit tests after every agent edit; CI gates reject what the conventions forbid.

03

Reusable skills

Project skills encode recurring workflows — convention checks, Firestore schema changes, landing PRs, cutting and shipping releases.

04

Agents in the loop

A Firebase MCP server for live project context, git worktrees for parallel agents, and Claude Code reviewing pull requests in CI.

Experience

Mar 2026 — Present

Lead Engineer & Technical Owner

Bass Thumb AI

End-to-end ownership of a production Flutter app, Firebase backend, AI pipeline and CI/CD release automation.

Apr 2022 — Dec 2025

Principal Software Engineer, Wallet Team

Fidelity Digital Assets

Directed technical strategy and architecture decisions across 3 squads; mentored engineers across the wallet team and ran a biweekly cross-squad engineering forum; partnered with Product, UX and end-users to shape a prioritized backlog.

Dec 2020 — Apr 2022

Principal Software Engineer & Product Owner

Fidelity — Core Brokerage

Engineered a desktop Brokerage Operations Workstation on OpenFin, then led a squad of 10 as Product Owner to migrate capabilities off legacy mainframe systems.

May 2018 — Dec 2020

Tech Lead, Trading Team

Fidelity Digital Assets

Built the institutional Bitcoin trading app — real-time price charting, order entry and management, streaming order book — plus the internal Exchange app for liquidity providers and order routing.

Dec 2016 — May 2018

Lead Developer

Fidelity — Centralized Electronic Trading

Led the development effort modernizing a large suite of legacy Execution Services applications into Angular web apps.

Oct 2014 — Dec 2016

Lead Developer

Fidelity — Capital Markets Prime Services

Led the update of the main customer-facing application in Prime Brokerage. Drove adoption of a modern developer workflow — linting, live browser reloads, an automated testing framework, minification and bundling. Acted as ScrumMaster while helping transition others into the role.

May 2010 — Sep 2014
Cynergy acquired by KPMG · Mar 2014 KPMG

One continuous role through the acquisition of Cynergy by KPMG.

Senior Associate, Advisory — Digital & Mobile

KPMG US · Mar 2014 — Sep 2014

Software Consultant

Cynergy · May 2010 — Feb 2014

Built touchscreen and kiosk applications for Walmart, Volkswagen of America and a national tire retailer.

Apr 2009 — May 2010

Senior Software Engineer

Andromeda Systems Inc.

Developer on Reliability Centered Maintenance software for the United States Navy.

Jul 2007 — Dec 2008

Software Consultant

Cynergy, The Experience Agency
Jun 2004 — Jul 2007

Software Developer

Optical Image Technology

Developer on a document management software suite.

Skills

Languages

TypeScript, JavaScript, Dart

Frontend

Angular, RxJS, NgRx, Flutter, OpenFin, responsive web applications

Mobile

iOS & Android development, Xcode, Android Studio, Google Analytics

Backend & Cloud

Node.js, Firebase (Cloud Functions, Firestore, Auth, Storage), Google Cloud, AWS, REST APIs

AI & ML

Claude Code, OpenAI API, Vercel AI SDK, agentic development workflows

Testing & Quality

Unit, widget & integration testing, Jest, Vitest, Playwright, code review

DevOps & Practice

Nx, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Fastlane, SonarQube, Agile at Scale, PI Planning, mentorship

Education & certifications

B.S. Information Sciences & Technology
The Pennsylvania State University
2000 — 2004
Blockchain Essentials
eCornell
2023
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
2021
Certified ScrumMaster
Scrum Alliance
2014