Joe is the founder and "Chief Piston" of MediaPiston. Joe is responsible for the vision and strategy of developing a community of experts that can tackle on demand, large-scale creative content projects.

Most recently, Joe was CTO of WhitePages, a top-50 website in the USA according to Quantcast. While at WhitePages, he oversaw a 55 person team, including engineering, IT, ops, and QA personnel. Joe also was the co-founder and CEO of Snapvine, a venture-backed, mobile social networking service with over six million users. Snapvine was acquired by WhitePages in 2008. Joe has also worked at Openwave and Starwave (EPSN.com) as a technical product manager and software engineer. Joe graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington in 1997, and went on to receive a MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management in 2004.

One time, Joe ordered a massive commercial shipping container full of antique furniture from China. Unfortunately, it was dropped off in the front yard of his house in a suburban neighborhood just three days before Christmas.

• jheitzeb
• Currently Obsessed
• GearBundles.com

David is a co-founder and leads the overall software development at MediaPiston, including quality control system, tools, user interface, payments and APIs.

An avid programmer since age 14, David has interned with Google as a Software Development Engineer and worked as a software engineer at Paul Allen's company, EVRI. He earned his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

When he's not "wrangling the text" at MediaPiston, David's musical interests take up much of his time. He plays electric bass and cello for a number of Seattle bands, including Operation ID, Song Sparrow Research, Smallface, and the Seattle Rock Orchestra. He also helps run Table & Chairs, a record label featuring an eclectic mix of musicians and bands.

• dbalatero
• Open source
• Table & Chairs

Rob is a software engineer at MediaPiston and is responsible for making sure the major systems and application development tasks work like a dream. He is interested in the theory and practice of software system design, and is rumored to be a cool guy.

Rob joined MediaPiston from Amazon, where he worked on the Kindle e-book reader. He graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington and spent a year abroad studying Computer Science at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He also studied Jazz Composition at the Berklee College of Music.

• ohwillie

Peter van Wesep is a Software Engineer at MediaPiston who specializes in designing secure, robust and easy-to-use web applications.

Prior to joining us, Peter worked as both a software consultant for Wishpond and a research and teaching assistant at the University of Washington in Seattle. Peter is also a graduate of the University of Washington and spent one year in Zurich, Switzerland studying at the prestigious Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule.

When he is not buried in code, Peter enjoys riding his bike (once from Seattle to San Francisco!), playing Frisbee in the park and drinking lots of excellent beer (although, obviously, not all at the same time). He also is a strong proponent of education, regularly volunteering at public schools and teaching programming and robotics classes at the YMCA.

• Open source

Zach is the software engineer at MediaPiston charged with building systems that our virtual workforce depends upon most, including worker profiles, writer tools, notifications systems, and the workflow pipeline.

Zach brought a great deal of technical expertise with him to MediaPiston, including his experiences as CTO of Mavenry and as a co-founder of Skillbit. Zach has also worked as web developer at startups such as MealStork and HelpHive. He graduated from the University of Washington in 2008 with a B.A. in Informatics, where he also served as the technical manager of Rainydawg Radio, the university's internet streaming-only radio station.

While his home base is in Seattle, he describes himself as "nomadic" and can be found coding over 3G from campgrounds out of his vintage Volkswagan Bus that has been retrofitted to run partially on solar power. He enjoys attending and participating in technology festivals and communities, and has a predilection for drinking tasty beverages.

• zachhale
• Open source

Carlos is a Software Engineer with MediaPiston. His mission is to create a user interface that is not only effective, but also highly interactive and fun for the writers and editors to work with.

Carlos graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico in 2007. While he was studying and doing research, he was an intern at Microsoft for two summers. After graduating, he worked at Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen's EVRI.com, where he was responsible for turning Photoshop sketches into interactive widgets. He is also the front-end developer for Fixie Consulting, where he specializes in Ruby on Rails and Javascript consulting.

Carlos wants people to be happy! In order to make more people happy, he created cohitre.com, where you can find funny eels, roosters, and turtles that are on display in various make-you-happy postcards. Are you unhappy?

• cohitre
• cohitre.com
• Open source