Craig Citro

Developer

Software Architect with 18+ years building enterprise systems at scale. Expert in full-stack development, from mobile apps to distributed backend services. Passionate about software and eager to learn, grow, and embrace new challenges and technologies.

Work

Principal Software Engineer

– Present
Glenview, IL

Largest independently-owned, single-location retailer of electronics, appliances, and home goods in the USA.

  • Pioneered AI/ML Service Analysis system using frontier LLMs, reducing diagnostic time and processing 100,000+ service tickets with automated troubleshooting and part ordering

  • Led continual development of Android fleet application through 350+ releases, integrating Stripe payment processing and real-time GPS tracking for 6M+ deliveries, reducing paper usage by 95%

  • Implemented 10+ payment integrations (Stripe, Affirm, FreedomPay, finance, and more) processing billions of dollars in transactions with PCI-compliant tokenization and fraud detection

  • Migrated critical systems from MySQL to MariaDB with Redis clustering, improving query performance by 40% and supporting increased daily transactions

  • Developed AI-powered content generation tools for SEO optimization and product descriptions, generating 10,000+ unique product descriptions and improving organic search

  • Built real-time vendor API integrations with Whirlpool, GE, Samsung, and 7+ other manufacturers, automating inventory management for 100,000+ SKUs

  • Architected and deployed Orchestrate, a comprehensive Docker orchestration platform with GitLab CI/CD integration, improving developer productvity with on-demand dev/qa environments

Senior Software Engineer

Abt Electronics
Glenview, IL
  • Developed an in-house Android application used by Abt's delivery and service fleets using Java, Kotlin, SQLite/Room, and Compose

  • Built a custom Point of Sale system (POS) used for sales and service using PHP, Typescript, React, and Oracle

  • Implemented several payment solutions such as payment gateways, EMV, NFC, PayPal, Affirm, Syncrhony, Bitcoin, and more

Software Engineer

Abt Electronics
Glenview, IL
  • Led migration of years of legacy code to Git version control, establishing branching strategies and deployment processes adopted by 20+ developers

  • Integrated credit card reading devices with point of sale system using C# and JavaScript

  • Developed new featured for ecommerce website such as search, filtering, fulfillment, and discounts using PHP and jQuery

Operations Manager

L&L X-Ray Service
Schaumburg, IL

Lead the development of the growing digital imaging division of this leading X-ray service and repair company

  • Created a PACS (picture archiving and communication system) using PHP, HTML, Javascript, MySQL and C#

  • Designed an inventory management system that interfaced with barcode scanners

  • Created a sales lead tracking system

Education

Projects

AI-Powered Service Analysis Platform

  • Integrated fronteir LLMs with custom prompts achieving improved accuracy and efficiency in problem diagnosis

  • Built real-time streaming architecture delivering AI responses with Server-Sent Events

  • Processed 100,000+ service tickets, reducing average diagnostic time from 15 minutes to seconds

  • Implemented intelligent caching layer reducing API costs while maintaining response quality

Orchestrate - Container Orchestration Platform

  • Architected using Node.js/Bun backend and React frontend with real-time WebSocket updates

  • Automated SSL certificate management with Let's Encrypt integration and auto-renewal

  • Built workspace-based architecture supporting multiple services across dev/staging/production

  • Integrated GitLab API for seamless CI/CD pipeline management and source control

Abt Fleet Android Application

  • Android app written using Kotlin and Compose; backend written in PHP and MySQL

  • Replaced a the costly and time consuming system of printing tickets for every stop

  • Allowed drivers to visualize their routes in both list an map styles, and record their progress throughout the day

  • Tracked the driver's location throughout by logging over 500 million GPS updates, and created map visualization tools for customer service and managers

  • Improved the information available about Abt deliveries by capturing over 14 million photos, and additional data such as waivers, and digital notes and signatures

Enterprise Point of Sale System

  • Built with TypeScript, React, and PHP backend, handling $500M+ in annual sales

  • Integrated 15+ payment methods including EMV, NFC, Affirm, Synchrony with PCI compliance

  • Achieved sub-second response times during peak holiday traffic (1000+ transactions/hour)

  • Created intelligent product recommendation engine increasing average order value

Awards

Employee of the Year

Awarded by Abt Electronics

Skills

AI/ML

  • OpenAI
  • LLM
  • Real-time Streaming

Frontend

  • TypeScript
  • React
  • JavaScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Svelte
  • HTML5/CSS3

Backend

  • Node.js
  • PHP
  • Python
  • Go
  • C#

Mobile Development

  • Android
  • Kotlin
  • Jetpack Compose

Database & Infrastructure

  • MariaDB
  • MySQL
  • Redis/Valkey
  • Oracle
  • SQLite

DevOps & Cloud

  • Docker/Docker Swarm
  • GitLab CI/CD
  • Nginx
  • Linux
  • SSL/TLS

Payment Systems

  • Stripe
  • PCI Compliance
  • EMV/NFC
  • Payment Tokenization
  • Fraud Detection