Matthew Trost

Founder / software engineer / operator

Founder of two companies, software engineer with 15+ years of full-stack work, and all-around problem solver. I’ve built developer tools, infrastructure, consumer products, and production AI systems. As co-founder and COO of Superoot, that range extends to production, supply chain, financial modeling, bookkeeping, and compliance.

Experience

  1. Feb 2024–present

    Superoot

    Co-founder, CTO & COO

    • Started a consumer drink-mix company with one co-founder. Superoot is now sold in 375 Whole Foods stores nationwide.
    • Built the company’s operating software in TypeScript and Node.js, bringing data from email, Slack, Shopify, and distributor portals into shared ledgers and reports.
    • Automated forecasting, document extraction, chargeback reconciliation, scenario modeling, and vendor correspondence with tool-using LLM agents.
    • Manage supply chain, freight, customs, compliance, financial modeling, the books, and insurance. Helped secure nationwide Sprouts and HomeGoods deals and distribution to about 300 independent grocers.

  2. Sep 2019–Feb 2024

    Aesthetic

    Senior software engineer → founder & principal software engineer → founder & CTO

    • Stayed with the continuing team after Plato Design restructured, joined as a founder in 2020, and became CTO in 2023.
    • Led engineering and product through several pivots, including an NFT platform and language-learning products.
    • Built MemTalk, a hands-free iOS app for studying AI-generated audio flashcards.
    • Wrote the Swift systems that coordinated speech synthesis, speech recognition, and background playback while the phone was locked.
    • Owned architecture and delivery across TypeScript, Node.js, React, Swift, and PostgreSQL.

  3. May–Aug 2019

    Plato Design

    Senior software engineer

    Built data models, APIs, dashboards, and background jobs for back-office software used by design agencies for quoting, project accounting, resourcing, and permissions.

  4. Nov 2018–Apr 2019

    Independent projects and exploration

    Developed personal software projects and explored possible new ventures after Haiku.

  5. Nov 2016–Oct 2018

    Haiku · Y Combinator W18

    Co-founder & CTO

    • Started the company with one co-founder and led it into Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 batch.
    • Wrote the compiler, runtime, and most of the Electron editor for Haiku Animator, which turned visual animations into version-controlled code for web and native apps.
    • Grew the team to five engineers and a designer. The open-source core has 766 GitHub stars; the launch reached #1 on Product Hunt and Hacker News.

  6. Mar–Nov 2016

    Paperspace

    Software engineer

    Built TypeScript backend systems for a cloud virtual-desktop and GPU-compute product, including a Stripe payments rebuild.

  7. Aug 2015–Mar 2016

    Civil Comments

    Senior engineer

    Worked in Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, and Python to take a self-moderating comments platform from prototype to launch.

  8. Sep 2014–Aug 2015

    Famo.us

    Curriculum engineer → software engineer & team lead / technical project manager

    Developed technical curriculum, then led a four-person framework team and designed the declarative API for a 3D web engine.

  9. Dec 2007–Aug 2014

    TED Conferences

    Editorial intern → editorial assistant → assistant editor → QA lead → software engineer

    • Proofread and wrote copy for TED.com and conference programs.
    • Joined the founding team of the TED Open Translation Project and wrote Java tooling to automate talk housekeeping. This was my first programming.
    • Led QA and project-managed the original TEDx website launch while learning programming and mathematics at community college.
    • Joined the development team in 2012 and shipped software for TED.com and TEDx in PHP and Symfony, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Sass, and MySQL.

  10. 2005–2008

    Early employment

    • Angelica Kitchen · Apr 2006–Apr 2008 · Juice bar cashier → expeditor → kitchen supervisor. Ensured speedy delivery of hot, perfectly plated food to the front of house. Performed quality checks, sanitation, stewardship, food preparation, and cooking for Manhattan’s most popular vegan restaurant.
    • Oren’s Daily Roast · Sep 2005–Oct 2006. Moved from barista to assistant manager.