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Resume

Keith J. Hetrick

Audio platform engineer; a decade in commercial production before building tools for it. Solo-shipped Bellweather Studios' first plugin product line - native C++20 plugins, Electron desktop application, and revenue infrastructure - from architecture through public release in April 2026.

Experience

Founder & Lead EngineerDecember 2025 - Present

Bellweather Studios · Remote

  • Architected and shipped a cross-surface audio platform - native C++20 plugins across VST3, AU, AAX, CLAP, and Standalone, modeled after SSL, 1176, LA-2A, dbx 160, and Fairchild 670; an Electron desktop application; AWS-backed revenue infrastructure - over a shared C++ module base spanning DSP, UI, RT-safety, testing, licensing, and telemetry. First public release: April 2026, signed and notarized.
  • Built a format-aware release-validation system covering VST3 (pluginval), AU (auval), CLAP (clap-validator), and AAX (DigiShell / AAX Validator) under a single orchestrator that emits canonical proof bundles per release. Hosted qualification for VST3 and AU runs through Observatory, an in-house JUCE-based qualification app; format-native validators cover the rest. First releases shipped under this discipline in May 2026, signed, notarized, and stapled.
  • Migrating the revenue runtime off Vercel onto AWS ECS Fargate (Docker / ECR / ALB) one route at a time via a proxy-via-website cutover. Vercel remains the auth gate and frontend shell; ECS owns mutation logic. Per-route flags with one-env-flip rollback, signed internal-auth envelopes between runtimes, dual-secret rotation, and shadow-comparison windows per route.
  • Cross-language design-token pipeline: one source change propagates to C++ constexpr headers, TypeScript modules, and CSS custom properties. UI drift across native and web surfaces is structurally precluded.
  • Real-time audio path: lock-free atomics, zero heap allocation, Pimpl-isolated (~99% stack reduction). Sanitizer-backed validation lanes (ASan/UBSan/TSan) wired into the build matrix as first-class gates.
  • Stood up a mutation-testing pipeline after a DC-offset bug passed 94% line coverage for months. The pipeline caught it; line coverage didn't.
  • Payment, email, and auth providers decoupled behind adapter interfaces with Zod-validated boundaries; shared kernel governed by a three-question admission rubric. 69 pre-push gates enforce type strictness, secret hygiene, architecture drift, and reproducibility in ~20 seconds - escapes caught at the keyboard, not in CI. Gate scope is declared by manifests co-located with the source they govern, after a path-pinned check silently rotted post-refactor.
Contract Full-Stack DeveloperAugust 2022 - 2025

West End Designs · Remote

Built and shipped full-stack SaaS products across Next.js, React, MongoDB, AWS, and Stripe - marketing sites and an AI-powered content generation platform.

Background

A decade of commercial audio production before building tools for it. Credits with Charlie Wilson, Jennifer Lopez, Boyz II Men, Snoop Dogg, and T.I. - 1B+ cumulative streams, Billboard #1.