About Me

Craig Selbert

Senior Software Architect / Team Lead

Innovative and results-driven Senior Software Architect with 25+ years of experience designing, modernizing, and leading enterprise-scale software systems.

Proven expertise in .NET, Azure, and Kubernetes (AKS) architectures supporting millions of users and high-volume SaaS workloads. Recognized for achieving sub-second performance, zero-downtime deployments, and cost-optimized scalability through DevOps automation, observability, and AI-assisted development.

Skilled at mentoring engineers, defining architectural standards, and bridging business and technical goals.

25+
Years
49ms
P90 Latency
99.99%
Uptime

Location

St. Louis, MO

Current Role

Senior Software Architect

@ Swank Motion Pictures

Education

B.S. Information Management

Washington University

Magna Cum Laude, GPA 3.83

Career Journey

Professional Experience

Senior Software Architect / Team Lead

Swank Motion Pictures

St. Louis, MO

Mar 2015 – Present

Leading the design, modernization, and scalability of a multi-tenant SaaS video-on-demand platform supporting 1M+ users and sustaining 300 RPS during peak business hours. Manage a cross-functional team of seven engineers, two QA, and one DevOps resource.

  • Cloud-Native Architecture: Designed modular monolithic architecture with REST APIs and Azure Service Bus; leveraged AKS horizontal pod autoscaling to support 2× year-over-year traffic growth.
  • Performance & Reliability: Achieved 49 ms 90th-percentile API latency and 99.99% uptime via rolling, backward-compatible deployments.
  • Modernization: Directed upgrades to .NET 10 with containerized infrastructure (Docker, Helm); integrated Fastly CDN and Azure Blob Storage.
  • CI/CD & Automation: Built end-to-end CI/CD pipelines with Azure Pipelines, Argo CD, NUnit, and Playwright, reducing deployment time by 60%.
  • Observability: Implemented Grafana + Prometheus + OpenTelemetry stack, reducing MTTR.
  • AI Innovation: Led evaluation and adoption of GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT Codex, and Claude Code.

Senior Developer

Swank Motion Pictures

St. Louis, MO

Mar 2011 – Mar 2015
  • LMS Development: Engineered Learning Management System using ASP.NET MVC 3 and Entity Framework 4.1, reducing page load times by 30%.
  • Cloud Migration: Migrated LMS to Azure Cloud, cutting operational costs by 40%.

Senior Developer

Thomson Reuters

St. Louis, MO

Apr 2009 – Mar 2011

Enhanced Global Fund Screener and Lipper Marketplace systems, improving data accuracy by 20% and streamlining analytics workflows.

Technical Lead

Wachovia (S3 Consultant)

St. Louis, MO

Aug 2008 – Apr 2009

Led architectural evaluations during the A.G. Edwards merger, increasing application capacity by 50% through scalability redesigns.

Senior Solution Developer

Avanade / MD Anderson Cancer Center

Irving, TX

Feb 2008 – Aug 2008

Engineered Structured Clinical Documentation system integrated with EMR, improving documentation accuracy by 30%.

Senior Solution Developer

Ameren UE (S3 Consultant)

St. Louis, MO

Jan 2007 – Feb 2008

Redesigned outage map system to handle 70K RPS, increasing capacity by 400%. Optimized LIHEAP web service to sub-second response times.

Earlier Roles

1999 – 2007

MD Tablet

Developer

EMR auto-update functionality and HL7 integration

LRS Consultant

Developer

Re-engineered Tropics global research utility on .NET

Karpel Computer Systems

Developer

Modernized VB6 CRM to VB.NET

Pharmacia

Developer

Built People Directory module in PeopleSoft

The Joseph Company

Developer/Engineer

E-commerce platform multi-tenancy

Skills & Tools

Technical Expertise

Languages & Frameworks

C# .NET (1.0–10) TypeScript JavaScript SQL Python Angular RxJS

Architecture

CQRS Event Sourcing REST Modular Monoliths Repository Pattern

Cloud & DevOps

Azure AKS Azure SQL Azure Pipelines Argo CD Docker Helm

Monitoring & Testing

Grafana Prometheus OpenTelemetry NUnit Playwright

AI & Innovation

GitHub Copilot ChatGPT Codex Claude Code Agentic AI RAG

Practices

Agile/Scrum TDD OOA/OOD Metrics-Driven
Credentials

Certifications

Microsoft Certified Solution Developer

MCSD – .NET

Impact

Leadership

AI Working Group

Evaluating AI tools and workflows

Patterns & Practices Sessions

Driving engineering best practices

Community

Speaking & Teaching

Instructor

Washington University CAIT Program

Teaching next-generation developers the fundamentals of software architecture and best practices.

Conference Presenter

Technical Conferences

Days of DotNet, DevUp, The Cloud and AI Summit — sharing insights on architecture, performance, and cloud-native development.

Philosophy
Architecture is about empowering engineers and systems to evolve faster than the technology beneath them. My focus is on scalability, clarity, and continuous innovation that transforms ideas into reliable, high-performing software.