Robert Cunningham

Work

Founder at Focal

TypeScript, Python, Postgres, Redis, ClickHouse
  • Built an agentic in-browser video editor that served 1M+ users.
  • Ran production infrastructure and a distributed inference fleet of hundreds of GPUs.
  • Did YC, raised $2M, and reached $500k annualized run rate.

Creator of Quantized.co

React, TypeScript, GraphQL, Postgres.
  • Built a spaced-repetition platform and paid marketplace used for 4.3M reviews and 16,000 study hours.

VLSI Intern at NVIDIA

Python, Rust.
  • Worked on an applied research team doing machine learning for chip design.
  • Built a model to predict final chip area without expensive industry tooling.

ZKP Eng for the Ethereum Foundation

Part time. TypeScript, Circom.
  • Made Dark Forest, a zero-knowledge proof based space game, with four friends.
  • Wrote the zk circuits which computed provable noise functions, hashes, comparisons, and distances, all inside a prime field, with only addition and multiplication.
  • Vitalik tweeted that the game was really fun.
  • "[DF] set a precedent for real-time strategy gaming on the blockchain." (Cointelegraph)

Platform Intern at Cogo Labs

Python, Go, Kubernetes, TypeScript, React.
  • Added features to concurrent systems in Go and Python.

Creator of FastCitations

JavaScript, React, Mongo, Python, PyTorch.
  • Built a consumer citation tool that turned batches of URLs into formatted bibliographies.

Engineering Intern at Oneiro

AWS.
  • Created their CI/CD pipeline (AWS S3, ECR, ECS, Lambda, etc).

Engineering Intern at Achievement Network

Go.
  • Added features and fixed bugs for backend systems in Go.

Projects

Perhaps you want to read about the time I patched a Linux kernel while dumping the .sos from an Android game, a 3-inch quadcopter I made from the circuit boards up, or a poker agent trained via RL to play aggressively in anonymous online poker rooms? See my full list of projects.