Professional résumé
Eric Rhea
Principal Engineer · Banking, retail, and applied AI
I build reliable systems and help teams make clear technical decisions.
This page is designed to print cleanly using your browser’s Print or Save as PDF command.
Summary
Principal Engineer with two decades across banking, retail, and AI. One of the original engineers behind SmartyPig and CorePro, the cloud-native banking-as-a-service core that became Q2 Helix — a platform powering fintech brands including Credit Karma, Gusto, and Betterment. I also built the CorePro-powered education-savings experience for Sallie Mae’s Upromise program. Alongside a decade of platform architecture in consequential financial systems, I run an active public practice in applied AI: agent systems, small-model training, public build competitions, talks, and published research.
My operating focus is straightforward: turn ambiguity into explicit decisions and interfaces, reduce surprise, and grow the judgment that lets teams maintain a high standard without a single-person bottleneck.
Professional record
Principal Engineer, Helix · Q2
- One of the original engineers and technologists behind CorePro, the cloud-native banking-as-a-service platform that became Helix — technology that powers leading fintech brands including Credit Karma, Gusto, and Betterment.
- Responsible for software architecture that shapes how teams deliver solutions impacting the banks and fintechs on the platform; actively unblock teams on division-level initiatives.
- Established the Architecture Review Board for Helix and a founding member of the Q2 Security Champions Program.
- Drive artificial-intelligence adoption across the division and the broader Q2 organization, supporting multiple teams and stakeholders; frequently requested speaker on Helix and AI topics.
- Published practical guidance on generative AI, risk, privacy, human review, and applications for embedded finance.
Sources: LinkedIn profile · Helix by Q2 article archive and author biography.
President · RTS, Inc.
- Presiding advisor to projects undertaken by the company across multiple niche sectors.
- Arkitome — a mixed-realities company exploring VR and AR on the edge, featured by MSI and at industry conferences.
- HikingDogCo — a premier e-commerce brand for active-lifestyle enthusiasts and their dogs.
Senior Software Architect · Social Money
- Founding engineer behind SmartyPig, the goal-based social savings platform that reached $212M in deposits by its second year; the product later moved to Sallie Mae Bank in 2015.
- Part of the founding start-up team that generalized the SmartyPig engine into CorePro, a cloud-native banking core.
- Built the education-savings experience for Sallie Mae’s Upromise program — the first Sallie Mae project — on CorePro.
- Social Money was acquired by Q2 Holdings in 2015 as its next-generation digital deposit platform.
Sources: The SmartyPig and Upromise product lineage · Upromise partnership coverage.
Independent Contractor · Robert Half Technology
- Provided project and product management alongside hands-on technical and business expertise across a wide range of products and projects for high-profile clients.
- Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield — health-insurance systems work supporting the Affordable Care Act.
- Pioneer Hi-Bred — biotech research and development tooling for one of the world's leading seed companies.
- Jacobson Logistics — logistics automation for a major third-party logistics provider.
- Sport Graphics — innovative sport-management solutions.
Engineering leadership practice
- Decision-making and architecture work spanning reviews, escalations, postmortems, operating standards, and team development.
- Leadership method centered on explicit goals, interfaces, ownership, next steps, and definitions of good.
- Published the recurring principles and anti-patterns as an inspectable Leadership OS.
Source: How I Wrote This OS and Identity & Purpose.
Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Sloan School of Management
Purdue University
Certifications
Microsoft Professional Program — Artificial Intelligence Certificate
Honors & awards
Gold Medal, Fencing — Iowa Games
First-place finish on the podium at the Iowa Games, Iowa's statewide amateur athletics festival presented by Grinnell Mutual.
Silver Medal, Fencing — Iowa Games
Second-place finish; interviewed in WHO13's coverage of the Iowa Games summer events and their 10,000 participants.
Areas of practice
Every skill below is backed by published work — 513 pages of it. Click any chip to open the Frontier Atlas filtered to the receipts.
- Applied AI 318
- AI agent systems 133
- Public build competitions 137
- Brain science & cognition 109
- Virtual worlds 79
- Game development 69
- Model training & evaluation 65
- Technical writing 45
- Engineering leadership 39
- Generative media 29
- Local AI & inference 27
- Robotics 27
- Embedded systems 25
- Advisory & briefings 18
- Embedded finance 15
- Web development 12
Selected public work
AI leadership briefing · DMACC
A practical briefing on turning AI pilots into governed, cross-functional capability across product, engineering, and operations.
AI discussion · P3+Uplift Tech Yeah! meetup
Led the community AI discussion (January 2026), including how finding value with AI can create the next set of bottlenecks.
Spring Into AI and Summer Into AI
Public build competitions with visible rules, prompts, submissions, scoreboards, and published learning artifacts.
Applied research and experiments
Working artifacts and field notes across agent systems, model evaluation, local inference, generated worlds, and engineering workflows.
Leadership principles
- Make the work legible. Name the decision, interface, owner, and standard.
- Design for change. Reliability includes the ability to evolve without creating hidden risk.
- Leave evidence. Working artifacts, source notes, and public receipts carry more trust than unsupported claims.
- Scale judgment. The goal is a team that can uphold quality without routing every choice through one person.