John Young

About

John Young

I started in finance — modeling risk on a $1B+ credit-card portfolio at Capital One — then taught myself to code and never looked back. Since then I’ve founded two data platforms, both acquired, and built systems that clear 1M+ API requests a day.

Today I run engineering across Combine Capital and Infrared under Branched Services: multi-agent workflows that cut analysis time 75%, data infrastructure processing 100K+ daily events across EVM chains, and a MIMO token router that solves DeFi routing as a single min-cost-flow problem — sub-100ms across 50+ liquidity sources.

I publish research-backed essays on running AI coding agents in production. Every claim is traced to a primary source in a verified research index, updated 2026-07-01.

Career

  1. 2023 — Now

    CTO, Combine Capital & Head of Engineering, Infrared — Branched Services

    Trading infrastructure, DeFi routing, AI-agent workflows.

    • 75%reduction in analysis time from a production multi-agent data-processing system
    • 65%faster DeFi compliance investigation via fine-tuned LLMs that explain transactions in plain English
    • 100K+daily events processed across EVM chains and CEXs
    • sub-100msMIMO route computation across 50+ liquidity sources at less than 1% slippage estimation error

  2. 2021 — 2022

    Software Engineer — FRACTAL (Fractal Wealth)

    Automated crypto and DeFi trading strategies.

    • 5+ yrsof historical data processed by a backtesting framework built for strategy validation
    • 40%reduction in potential losses from risk systems with dynamic position sizing

  3. 2018 — 2021

    Founder & CTO — Cryptosheets

    Real-time cryptocurrency data platform for Microsoft Excel. Acquired 2019.

    • 30,000+active users
    • 1M+daily API requests on architecture I designed and scaled
    • Exitacquired by a private buyer within the first year of operation

  4. 2016 — 2019

    Founder & Chief Software Architect — Spreadstreet.io

    Google Sheets integration for cryptocurrency market data. Exited to a strategic buyer.

    • 500+cryptocurrencies with real-time feeds and custom functions
    • 5,000+subscribers on a recurring-revenue model

  5. 2010 — 2017

    Principal Financial Analyst — Capital One

    Progressive analyst roles on a $1B+ credit-card portfolio.

    • $1B+portfolio covered by financial models I led cross-functional teams to build
    • 70%reduction in manual reporting via automated systems

Systems

Stack & Education

Stack

Languages
Go · Python · TypeScript · Solidity · SQL
AI–LLM
Claude API · LangGraph · multi-agent orchestration · RAG · QLoRA fine-tuning
Data & Infra
PostgreSQL · TimescaleDB · Redis · BigQuery · Kubernetes · AWS · GCP
DeFi
Uniswap · Aave · EVM internals · MEV protection

Education & Certification

  • Towson University — BS, Finance & Economics 2008 — 2010
  • Thinkful — Engineering Immersion (full-stack) 2018 — 2019
  • Hummingbot Foundation — StrategyV2 Developer, MVP at demo day 2024

Work With Me

I take on a small number of advisory and fractional engagements — agentic engineering, trading infrastructure, DeFi systems.

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