James Wegner

Hi, I'm James. I'm a software engineer based in New York City with a background in iOS development and consumer product engineering. Over my 10+ year career, I've built mobile experiences at Google, Meta, and startups, most recently working as a Senior iOS Engineer on Google Lens.

I'm currently on a career sabbatical focused on building side projects and deepening my expertise in AI, with a particular interest in mobile AI, on-device models, and retrieval-augmented systems. With an educational background in computer science and anthropology, I'm especially interested in the intersection of technology, the humanities, and everyday life.

Outside of work, I spend my time learning music production, taking photos around the world, and staying active through running, surfing, and hip-hop dance.

Photography

Documenting the natural world and city life.

A large, ornate fountain anchors a busy park plaza, set against a backdrop of a pond and dense green forest.

A scenic view of a river surrounded by dense foliage under a dramatic, cloudy sky, with prominent twin towers visible in the distance.

A view looking up through the lush, dense canopy of trees toward a cloudy blue sky.

A grand, multi-tiered fountain featuring a winged statue sprays water in a lush park setting under a cloudy sky.

Lush green foliage frames a view of a river and a distant bridge surrounded by trees.

Sunlight filters through the lush, dense canopy of trees overhead, creating a natural ceiling of green.

View all photography

Projects

NYC Local

Visit

Full-stack NYC event discovery platform that aggregates events from multiple sources and uses AI to improve search and categorization. Designed a multi-stage ingestion pipeline to scrape, normalize, deduplicate, and enrich event data from sources like Luma, Partiful, and Eventbrite. Implemented LLM-based tagging, semantic embeddings, and hybrid keyword plus vector search using pgvector to create a more intelligent discovery experience.

TypeScriptNode.jsReactHonoPostgreSQLDrizzle ORMTailwind CSSRailway

MTA Times

A native iOS application designed to provide real-time subway departure times in New York City. Built entirely with SwiftUI and leveraging iOS's geolocation capabilities, the app offers a seamless experience where users can simply open the app to view an automatically generated timetable for the nearest subway stop, along with a map for selecting other nearby stops. Integrates static GTFS MTA transit feed data and live GTFS feeds for real-time trip updates, backed by a full-stack API built with Next.js, Vercel, and Supabase.

SwiftUICombineSwift ConcurrencyNext.jsTypeScriptSupabase

My Bus Helper: MTD

App Store

An iOS application built with Swift and Objective-C that serves the Champaign-Urbana transit community. Using MapKit, CoreLocation, and the local transit API, the app provides real-time bus departure times, route information, and stop locations. Currently maintains 4,100 monthly active users with a 4.6-star average rating with over 900 reviews.

SwiftObjective-CMapKitCoreLocation

Work Experience

Personal goal pursuit — Career break

2024 – Present

On a self-directed career sabbatical focused on technical growth, side projects, and creative explorations. During this time, I've been deepening my expertise in AI and expanding beyond my iOS background into full-stack product development, with a particular interest in mobile AI, on-device models, and retrieval-augmented systems.
Participated in the Recurse Center, a self-directed intensive retreat for programmers, where I learned full-stack web development using Next.js, TypeScript, and React. I built an API for accessing real-time NYC subway departure times and a native iOS app using SwiftUI, Combine, Swift Concurrency to interface with it.
Built NYC Local, a full-stack event discovery product that aggregates NYC events from multiple sources and uses AI to improve search and categorization. The platform combines LLM-based tagging, semantic embeddings, and keyword search, giving me hands-on experience with retrieval-augmented patterns and end-to-end product development.
Creative pursuits: Second City improv classes, 343 Labs Ableton music production lessons, and hip hop dance workshops at Broadway Dance Center.

Google — Senior Software Engineer

2022 – 2024

Senior iOS engineer on Google Lens, leading platform and product development across Search, Photos, Translate, and Chrome. I drove a major framework migration that unified Lens architecture across multiple iOS apps, enabling the launch of Google Lens in Chrome iOS to more than 10 million new users, and also shipped new search result exploration features that increased engagement.

Hazel Health — Senior Software Engineer

2020 – 2022

Built and launched core iOS telehealth features for Hazel Health's K-12 care platform, with a focus on real-time provider-patient workflows. I led development of interactive patient forms that improved remote care delivery and reduced visit and charting time, and contributed to the successful rollout of Hazel's mental health services pilot.

Lyft — Software Engineer

2020

Worked on iOS growth and notifications infrastructure, improving both user acquisition surfaces and internal messaging capabilities. I audited and fixed notification permission flows that increased opt-in rates by 23%, resolved long-standing analytics issues, and led the client-side implementation of a badging system used to surface alerts, messages, and promotions across the app.

Kiddom — Software Engineer

2018 – 2019

Worked on Kiddom's iOS app for a K-12 edtech platform, with a focus on product architecture, accessibility, and growth. I helped establish a reusable design system for the app and led client-side work on a re-architected onboarding flow that supported deep linking and delivered significant improvements in signups and engagement after A/B testing.

Facebook — Software Engineer

2017 – 2018

Software engineer on Facebook's iOS Events team, where I built features to drive event discovery and engagement in the core app. I led development of an automatic event tagging feature for News Feed posts, which increased event engagement by 8%, and later worked on Facebook Movie Ticketing, helping launch native ticket purchasing experiences for theaters and showtimes.

Naval Air Systems Command — Computer Scientist

2016 – 2017

Built a C#/.NET desktop application for searching across large collections of PDF and text documents. The tool improved search speed through parallel processing, integrated Adobe Acrobat for editing and annotation, and replaced commercial software at a savings of $10,000.

Ag-Sensus — Technical Advisor, Founding Engineer

2015 – 2017

Full-stack engineer for an agricultural technology startup, building tools that connected UAV data capture with mobile and web software. I developed an iOS app using the DJI SDK, implemented agricultural image heat maps, and built a Django-based backend on AWS to power the product's data and device workflows.

Zondr — Co-founder, Founding Engineer

2014 – 2015

Co-founded and built Zondr, a mobile social platform for nightlife and venue discovery on the University of Illinois campus. I led iOS engineering, developed automatic venue check-ins with bluetooth iBeacon technology, integrated Facebook's social graph for login and friend discovery, and helped grow the product to 2,500 weekly active users.

Solstice Mobile — Mobile Software Engineering Intern

2013

Built internal tools and test infrastructure to improve mobile QA workflows across iOS and Android projects. My work included creating automated Calabash test suites, building a macOS app to run tests through a GUI, documenting adoption workflows for engineers, and helping integrate automated testing with Jenkins.

The UPS Store — Graphic Design Specialist

2007 – 2012

Supported customers with print and design projects while improving internal store workflows. I designed print materials, trained coworkers on production processes, and created templates that made complex printing jobs faster and more consistent for the team.

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James Wegner

Outside of work, I spend my time learning music production, taking photos around the world, and staying active through running, surfing, and hip-hop dance.