5,600+
commits shipped
across 21 active repositories
Open to new opportunities
Matthew Ruffino — Web Architect & Full-Stack Engineer
//WEB ARCHITECT— DETROIT, MI
I architect systems that move inventory, audio, pixels and players in real time — Web Architect at General RV, full-stack engineer behind CR8S and Regions, founder of Frank & Will and Exit 5 Games.
By the numbers
Shipped, deployed,
and still running.
16
production services
powering generalrv.com end-to-end
90%
fewer database writes
via SHA-256 fingerprint caching
6×/day
inventory syncs
monitored, queued & checkpointed
Case study — General RV
Sixteen services,
in concert.
General RV is the nation's largest family-owned RV dealer — founded in Michigan in 1962, now 23 locations across eight states. I designed and built the distributed system that keeps their inventory moving, from vendor feed to customer screen. Service names are abstracted here; scroll through and the map follows along.
Sync Engine
Inventory import middleware
Pulls vendor inventory feeds on a schedule, fingerprints every record, and ships only what actually changed — cutting downstream writes by roughly 90%. Validated, queued through concurrent workers, and checkpointed so a failed run resumes where it left off instead of starting over.
- Node.js
- Job queue
- In-memory cache
- Schema validation
Feed Watchdog
Uptime & freshness monitor
Inventory feeds land throughout the day on a strict schedule. The watchdog watches for each one and exposes health checks that fail the moment a feed is late — so a missing drop pages the team before anyone notices stale listings.
- Node.js
- Scheduling
- Health checks
- Uptime alerts
Headless Core + Audit Trail
Content & commerce hub
A headless content core models every unit and location, exposing a GraphQL + REST surface that every other service reads and writes. A companion audit trail captures before/after snapshots of each field change with source detection — it knows whether a human, a scheduled job, or the sync engine touched a record.
- Headless CMS
- GraphQL
- REST
- OAuth2 / JWT
Storefront + Data Enrichment
Customer experience layer
A Nuxt 4 storefront (2,500+ commits and counting) with map-based dealer search, payments and caching. A pooled headless-browser service enriches listings with extra spec data behind a queue, while a token service keeps third-party API credentials fresh automatically.
- Nuxt 4
- Map search
- Payments
- Edge caching
Match Alerts + Export
Outbound pipelines
The alerts service diffs every customer saved-search against cached counts and fires a notification the morning new inventory matches. The export service replaced an off-the-shelf plugin with a custom filter engine that streams the catalog out as CSV, JSON or templated feeds, on a schedule or on demand.
- Node.js
- GraphQL
- Webhooks
- Feed templating
Lead Capture
Email-to-CRM intake
Sales leads arrive as structured data buried inside email bodies. The service watches the inbox, parses and maps 100+ fields through configurable templates, and submits clean entries into the CRM — with retry tracking for anything that fails.
- IMAP
- Parsing
- Field mapping
- CRM API
Founder build — CR8S
Crate-digging,
reimagined for the browser.
CR8S is a Detroit-built platform to discover, collect and create — a curated home for music and culture that rejects the algorithmic feed. I architect and build it full-stack: a real-time audio engine, a 3D crate-digging experience, dual-rail payments and a headless CMS, across 1,100+ commits.
DiscoverCollectCreate
The 3D crate-digger — scroll to flip through the crate
An immersive browser turntable
The rebuilt record player puts a full 3D turntable around the Web Audio engine — flip sides, scrub the waveform, loop tracks, change playback speed, open the track list, and collect a find without leaving the deck.
Curated, never algorithmic
A personalized home that surfaces editorial picks, sample packs and artists you follow — discovery driven by humans and taste, not an engagement loop.
Your crate, organized
Collect and arrange everything you love into a personal library, then publish your own work back to the community.
- Nuxt 4
- Three.js / WebGL
- Web Audio API
- Directus
- Stripe
- PayPal
Selected work
From dealership pipelines
to game worlds.
Game development · City simulation
Regions ↗
A true agent-based city builder in Unreal Engine 5.8. Every vehicle is an individual Mass agent with its own driver model, moving through player-built typed roads, sculptable junctions, roundabouts, parking and terrain designed to grow into a living city.
- Unreal Engine 5.8
- C++
- Mass Entity
- ZoneGraph
- Procedural geometry
- Agent simulation
Independent game studio · Founder
Exit 5 Games ↗
My independent game studio and the home of Regions — focused on systems-driven worlds where infrastructure, agents and player decisions produce the story. I lead the simulation engineering, game architecture, product direction and public devlog.
- Studio founder
- Game design
- Simulation
- Technical direction
- Publishing
AI orchestration · Realtime SaaS
LAIR Dashboard
A mission-control dashboard for a crew of specialized AI agents — file a task, watch it run on a live kanban, and manage work across multiple studios and projects. One Nuxt 4 codebase that builds two ways: a hosted dashboard and a headless local runtime that syncs mission state back in real time.
- Nuxt 4
- Directus
- Pinia
- Discord OAuth
- WebSockets
- TypeScript
Game modding · Cities: Skylines II
CityLapse ↗
A mod for Cities: Skylines II that makes in-game timelapses effortless — automated frame capture as your city grows, with a built-in GIF exporter to share the build in seconds. Published to the modding community.
- Unity
- C#
- Cities: Skylines II
- GIF export
Real-time graphics · Broadcast
Stream Overlay Engine
A production overlay system for live broadcasts: six animated screen states, branded alert choreography for follows, subs, raids and bits, all driven over Socket.io with a full theming system.
- React 19
- Socket.io
- Framer Motion
- Zustand
- tsParticles
Agency · Founder
Frank & Will ↗
My development studio — AI, Web3, backend/API, frontend and live streaming work for clients including the NHL, Wayne State University, DPan TV and 4D Fun.
- Consulting
- Full-stack
- Live streaming
Live production
When it's live,
there's no second take.
Beyond the code, I direct and switch multi-camera live broadcasts — calling cuts, running graphics and replays, and keeping the show on air. From arena concerts and pro sports to reality shows, gaming and government press events.
CAM 01
12 Days of GrizmasGRiZ · live concert
ON AIRCAM 02
Ford FieldGov. Whitmer · FEMA
ON AIRCAM 03
White Shirt DayUAW Local 659
ON AIRCAM 04
Wayne State FootballNCAA · vs. GVSU
ON AIRCAM 05
Rochester Universitymen's basketball
ON AIRCAM 06
JCW Paniczonelive pro wrestling
ON AIRCAM 07
Kesh Houselive watch-party
ON AIRCAM 08
A Drink Withpresented by think!
ON AIRCAM 09
Grizmaslive band stage
ON AIRSwitched on
- vMix
- OBS Studio
- NewTek TriCaster
- NDI
- Blackmagic ATEM
- Wirecast
- Stream Deck
Selected broadcasts
- GRiZ — 12 Days of Grizmas
- Wayne State Athletics
- Rochester University
- JCW
- State of Michigan
- FEMA
- UAW
- A Drink With
- Kesh House
- think!
Also in the rotationVolleyball · Soccer · Hockey · Esports & gaming
Capabilities
The full surface area,
feed to frontend.
Architecture & Backend
- Node.js
- Microservices
- BullMQ / Redis / Valkey
- REST & GraphQL APIs
- WordPress (headless)
- PHP 8
- SQLite / MySQL
- Queue & pipeline design
- Cron / job orchestration
- SFTP / IMAP integrations
Frontend & Motion
- Vue 3 / Nuxt 4
- React 19
- TypeScript
- GSAP / ScrollTrigger
- Three.js / WebGL
- Canvas API
- Framer Motion
- Tailwind / Bootstrap
- Astro
Real-time & Audio
- Socket.io
- Web Audio API
- Howler.js
- 3D spatial audio
- Live streaming overlays
- Waveform visualization
Game Development
- Unreal Engine 5.8
- C++ / Blueprints
- Mass Entity
- ZoneGraph
- Agent-based simulation
- Procedural road geometry
- FiveM / Lua
- Motion warping
- Multiplayer sync
Platform & Ops
- Vercel
- WP Engine
- DigitalOcean
- Docker / PM2
- Stripe / PayPal
- Puppeteer automation
- UptimeRobot / observability