ℹ️ Hi, I’m Jonathan Chappelow! I'm a software engineer, technical leader, and backend systems architect with a focus on distributed systems, applied cryptography, and performance-critical infrastructure. Rooted in computational imaging and scientific research. I thrive on designing elegant, scalable systems—especially where decentralization, systems and protocol design, R&D, and strong typing intersect.
🔧 I build backends, protocols, and teams.
More about my work and background...
A distributed database for web3 using blockchain concepts for authorization and replication, with a PostgreSQL-backed datastore.
- Led system architecture and technical direction.
- Authored the PostgreSQL-backed datastore, libp2p-based networking layer, and JSON-RPC APIs.
- Implemented telemetry instrumentation, cryptographic identity systems, peer discovery, and many key features of the node software.
- Mentored engineers, reviewed all core code, and built a high-caliber engineering team.
🔄 DCRDEX
- Co-architect and lead developer for the open-source DCRDEX project, a fully non-custodial, cross-chain atomic swap system.
- Backend logic, PostgreSQL data layers, and atomic swap trade management.
🧭 dcrdata
- Blockchain explorer and REST API service for Decred.
- Contributor, architect, and maintainer.
You can find more of my work across:
- @chappjc – primary GitHub
- @jchappelow – secondary GitHub (active with Kwil)
- Languages: Go, SQL, C++, CUDA
- Tech: PostgreSQL, libp2p, Docker, GCP, AWS, OpenTelemetry, JSON-RPC, REST
- Focus: Distributed systems, protocol design, observability, applied cryptography
- Practices: Mentorship, CI/CD, clean architecture, defensive coding, IaC (Terraform, Docker, etc.)
- Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering — Rutgers University
- Former medical imaging research scientist, published author, and co-inventor on multiple patents.