Dustin Sparks

Lead Software Engineer | AI Agents, Applied AI, and Production Systems

I build production AI systems that connect language models to tools, application services, business rules, and human workflows.

Auburn, Alabama • djsparks.com • linkedin.com/in/pixelmixer • Resume

Summary

Lead software engineer on a healthcare product, building assistants for members, clinicians, and health coaches, and the clinical, insurance, and billing services around them. That includes a member assistant in daily use, a churn model that informed retention decisions, clinical note drafting, and prior-authorization and visit workflows, including registered dietitian care. Earlier, led front-end teams on enterprise platforms for Fannie Mae, Swiss Re, Lowe's Canada, and others. M.S. in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence), Georgia Tech.

Professional Experience

Found
Remote
March 2023 – Present
Lead Software Engineer
Lead for applied AI on a healthcare product. Shipped assistants for members, clinicians, and health coaches. Built a churn model that informed retention decisions, and drafting support so clinicians can review and edit clinical notes. Also built insurance, prior-authorization, and visit workflows, including the systems behind registered dietitian care, a new line of business.
April 2022 – March 2023
Senior Software Engineer
Rebuilt account creation and onboarding, including unfinished registrations. Built subscription management across web checkout and the mobile app stores, and shipped a public health-assessment quiz.
EPAM Systems
Remote
July 2015 – April 2022
Lead Software Engineer
Led front-end teams of 4–8 engineers on enterprise platforms in insurance, financial services, housing finance, healthcare, and commerce: hiring and staffing teams, planning work and architecture, and designing API contracts between front end and backend. Built in Angular, React, and Sitecore (.NET). Also mentored 50+ engineers and ran nearly 200 technical interviews.
Georgia Tech Professional Education
Savannah, GA
January 2017 – July 2019
Adjunct Instructor
Taught a 6-month full-stack bootcamp. Students started without a code editor and left able to build MERN applications. The course covered Git, Node, Express, Mongo, MySQL, jQuery, React, and C#.
NavigationArts
Remote
January 2015 – July 2015
Lead Front End Developer
Led an international team on large responsive corporate sites, web apps, and mobile apps, including healthcare and education sites. Owned architecture, component libraries, continuous integration, and mentoring across levels.
BFG Communications
Hilton Head Island, SC
December 2012 – January 2015
Lead Developer
Ran senior and junior developers across brand sites and interactive campaigns at the same time. Staffed work to people’s level, and set the front-end and back-end frameworks the team built on. Several of those campaigns were engines that let designers and artists make content without a developer: a quiz engine, a racing engine with a map editor, a tree-traversal engine, and an HTML engine built to move the work off Flash.
January 2012 – June 2013
Senior Interactive Developer
Built Flash for web and mobile, rich interfaces in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, and back-end services in PHP and .NET. Also worked in Unity, Ruby, and Node.
June 2011 – January 2012
Flash Developer
Actionscript and Flash for national manufacturers, plus JavaScript, HTML, and CSS interfaces. Supported that work with PHP and MySQL.
Vision 3
Indianapolis, IN
October 2010 – March 2011
Interactive Developer
Led interactive builds in Flash, Unity, and Xcode, using Actionscript, JavaScript, C#, and Objective-C. Delivered 3D product presentations for a faucet company and a multi-touch walkthrough of a helicopter engine assembly line.
Ball State University
Muncie, IN
June 2009 – October 2010
Multimedia Developer, Emerging Technologies
Research and development on iPhone, Android, and mobile Flash, plus augmented reality, HTML5, CSS3, and games in Unity.
November 2007 – May 2009
Interactive Media Master, Digital Corps
Built Mac OS X widgets, including a library card catalog, plus AJAX, PHP, MySQL, and Flash applications. Also made information kiosks and multimedia display boards.
August 2007 – June 2008
Interactive Developer, Digital Corps
Experimental interactive projects, and workshops for students who had not built interactive work before.
May 2007 – August 2007
Undergraduate Research Fellow
Built an Actionscript app that let people draw over streamed video in real time, save it, and play the drawing back with the video. Also designed interactive television interfaces.
January 2007 – May 2007
Interactive Media Specialist
Video editing, web design, and dynamic sites for the Center for Media Design, including research sites for NBC Universal.
2005 – 2006
Graphic Designer, Center for Media Design
Graphics for sites, presentations, and installations. Coded and styled site designs that were then loaded into the university content system.
MediaSauce
Carmel, IN
April 2008 – August 2008
Interactive Developer
Internship on a LAMP stack: PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, HTML, and XML, plus Flash with Actionscript 2 and 3. Design work in Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Maya. Center for Creative Leadership and PooYou came out of this studio.
Freelance
2016 – 2018
Interactive Developer
Multi-year solo engagement for Aprima, alongside a full-time role. Built the site on WordPress (HTML, CSS, and jQuery front end, PHP and MySQL back end), then stayed on in a support role, fixing issues and building new page templates and landing pages.
May 2004 – March 2010
Interactive Designer and Developer
Websites, applications, and widgets for Warner Brothers Records, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Garfield, Tracfone, the Indiana Pacers, and the Indy Racing League.

Education

Master of Science in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022
Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Telecommunications and Computer Science
Ball State University, 2005–2009

Skills & Tools

AI and Agent Systems
Production AI assistants, clinical documentation, retention models, and healthcare operations. Daily work uses AI coding agents. The next role is training agents, not only prompt-backed apps.
Languages and Backend
JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, NodeJS, Express, NextJS, MongoDB, MySQL, Postgres, OpenAPI, and contract-first API design
Frontend and Mobile
React, Angular, Sitecore (.NET), React Native, Flutter
Platforms
AWS, Docker, Heroku, CI/CD
Collaboration
Cross-functional team leadership, technical mentorship, interviewing, performance reviews

Assistant Platform

Patients, clinicians, and health coaches needed different help from the same product. I built the assistant platform they share, with a member assistant, a clinician assistant, and a health-coach assistant, each limited to the information and tasks that role should have.

  • Healthcare assistants
  • Role-based access

Found

Clinician Assistant

Clinicians were searching records and writing follow-ups by hand, and the notes varied from person to person. I built an assistant that brings up the relevant chart context and helps clinicians write clearer, more consistent responses.

  • Clinician assistant
  • Chart review
  • Clinical messaging

Found

Insurance, Coverage & Prior Authorization

Prior authorizations were handled by hand by a very small team, from collecting clinical notes and insurance details through submission to insurers. I built the workflow that tracks each authorization through submission, status, and renewal, and pulls a person in for cases that need judgment, such as denials. I also added coverage and billing checks that show cash and insurance options on a member's medication timeline.

  • Prior authorization
  • Coverage checks
  • Billing workflows

Found

Registered Dietitian Consults

Adding registered dietitian care meant a new clinical service the existing consult system was not set up for. I built the core pieces: eligibility checks, scheduling that matches patients with dietitians, visit documentation, and insurance billing for those visits.

  • EMR
  • Scheduling
  • Insurance eligibility & billing

Found

Visit Routing & Specialty Visits

The consult system had been built for one kind of visit. As care expanded, the product had to decide what kind of visit a member needs, who can provide it, what can be covered, and how it is billed. I built that visit workflow, including scheduling, clinician queues, messaging during the visit, coverage checks, and prior-authorization tracking, with a handoff when a person needs to step in.

  • Visit workflows
  • Scheduling
  • Coverage

Found

As a freelancer, I owned this multi-year engagement on my own: a full-stack build on WordPress, with an HTML, CSS, and jQuery front end and a PHP/MySQL back end. After launch, I stayed on in a support role, fixing issues and building new page templates and landing pages.

  • WordPress
  • PHP/MySQL
  • jQuery
  • Freelance

Freelance,

Aprima: Freelance Web BuildAprima: Freelance Web BuildAprima: Freelance Web BuildAprima: Freelance Web Build