Cave Creek, Arizona · One builder, no lane

Bring me the thing nobody else can build.

The stalled prototype. The problem three teams already gave up on. That's the work I want.

AI and autonomous systems. Custom hardware and firmware. Banking infrastructure. And storefronts that outrun the competition. If it can be built, I want to build it — end to end, one person accountable.

Tell me what you're trying to build See the benchmark github.com/parkktech

My work has shipped inside companies you already know

Applied Materials Western Alliance Bank Yamaha Pizza Hut Dairy Queen eos simplehuman The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Rubies Costume HerRoom The House of Staunton Phillips & Cohen
Principal Engineer III · Western Alliance Bank/ Fielded counter-UAS hardware/ 3 U.S. patents/ $65M+ client revenue
Proof you can audit

Magento was asking the database to do a job it was never built for.

Magento assembles product listing pages by hammering the database — and on a big catalog, that's why they crawl. FastMagento serves them from Opensearch instead, so pages that used to drag return in a fraction of the time.

Slow listing pages lose customers before they ever reach a product. This is the difference between a browse and a bounce.

Send me your catalog size and Magento version, and I'll tell you what your PLPs should be loading in.

Benchmark my store Read the source
FastMagento · live searchOpenSearch, not the DB
FastMagento instant search

// Real demo from the public FastMagento repo — results served from OpenSearch. Published TTFB benchmark to follow.

What I build

I've never been able to pick a lane.

Every pillar leads with what you get. I'm not advising from the sidelines — I'm the one building it.

Models I build and train from scratch.

AI & Autonomous Systems

Not API calls to someone else's model — computer-vision and detection models I architect, hand-train, and fine-tune myself (YOLOv8, CUDA, LoRA/DPO, local inference). The rare part: I work on both the model and the machine it runs on.

Trained in-house
Storefronts that load before your customer leaves.

Magento Performance & E-Commerce

The proof pillar. FastMagento rebuilt how Magento serves listing pages — open-source and benchmarked.

Publicly auditable
Money systems that hold up under scrutiny.

Fintech & Banking

Principal Engineer III at Western Alliance Bank today; before that, VP of Engineering at Phillips & Cohen launching SaaS into Westpac, Best Egg, Merrick and E.ON Next — through pen tests and international compliance. I also built EdgeTrades, an LLM-driven market-analysis platform. A career where a bug is measured in dollars.

Principal Engineer, active
From schematic to shipping hardware.

Circuit & Firmware Engineering

SolidWorks-certified CAD, PCB design, and the embedded firmware that runs on it — Jetson, CM4, Pico, RF systems. One person across both layers, so nothing gets lost between the hardware people and the software people.

A counter-UAS system that's actually deployed.

Defense & Counter-UAS Hardware

Founder and equity engineering partner on a counter-UAS RF-detection product I took from concept through CAD, PCB, firmware, and the operator UI. It's fielded and in real-world use. Where failure isn't an option, one person owns the whole stack.

Fielded · equity partner
Proof, not adjectives

One specific story beats a page of skills.

The work that's public and checkable — start here, then read the source.

Flagship · open source

FastMagento

A Magento extension that loads PDP and product data on listing pages from Opensearch instead of the database. The result is the fastest product listing pages in Magento 2 — and the code is public, so you don't have to take my word for it.

PHPMagento 2OpensearchPerformance
github.com/parkktech
What it proves

Deep performance engineering, publicly auditable — a superlative with the receipts attached.

Defense · fielded

Counter-UAS Defense Hardware

A counter-UAS RF-detection system I took from concept through CAD, PCB, firmware, and the operator UI — now deployed in real-world use. The one build I can't open-source, so specifics stay general.

Proves: I own an entire hardware + AI product end to end — and hold equity in it.
CADPCBFirmwareRFCounter-UAS
Former partner · Lead engineer

Strattas

As a partner and lead engineer, I built a commercial Magento extension line with its own license and update control — a master extension that managed licensing and delivered updates to the others. I am no longer involved with or supporting Strattas products.

Proves: shipped and supported commercial software over time, not just one-off builds.
PHPMagento 2LicensingSaaS
AI tooling · open source

Shrinkage

An AI coding plugin that keeps codebases lean — a token-lean map of a repo, a reuse-first gate before you write new code, and evidence-backed passes that strip dead code and duplication without changing behavior.

Proves: I build the tools AI coding agents run on, not just the apps.
PythonAI agentsClaude Code
github.com/parkktech/shrinkage
Fintech

Early Bitcoin Commerce

In 2010 — a year after Bitcoin existed at all — I built one of the internet's first Bitcoin stores, taking crypto for real goods when no payment tooling existed and you wrote it yourself.

Proves: fintech instincts and a very early read on where money was going.
PaymentsCryptoE-Commerce

Frontier work · built and trained in-house

If it can be built, it gets built here.

Right now that means AI models I build and train from scratch and a fielded counter-UAS drone-defense system I took from CAD to PCB to firmware to operator UI. 31 years of shipping — fintech, commerce, and hardware — is what makes the frontier work actually land.

$65M+revenue delivered for clients
3U.S. patents held
50+major projects shipped
31 yrsbuilding software, since 1994
Start the conversation
About

I've never been able to leave a good idea alone.

Jason Ratzlaff
Jason RatzlaffFounder · Parkk Technology · Cave Creek, AZ
By day
Principal Engineer III, Western Alliance Bank
Founder
Parkk Technology · counter-UAS hardware (equity)
Patents
3 U.S. patents held
Shipping since
Sept 1994 — 31 years
Based in
Cave Creek, Arizona
Code
github.com/parkktech

That's the honest version of how Parkktech started. Not a business plan — a workbench.

Most people pick a lane. I never could. I design circuits and then write the firmware that runs on them. I build and train AI models from scratch — the kind that let a drone see and decide for itself — and I'm the founding engineer and an equity partner on a counter-UAS system that's now fielded. By day I'm Principal Engineer III at Western Alliance Bank; in 2010 I built one of the internet's first Bitcoin stores. And I rebuilt how Magento serves product pages, because the database was never the right place to do it.

The range is the point, not an accident.

When you've had your hands on the hardware, you write better firmware. When you've spent years chasing milliseconds through someone else's framework, you stop accepting that hard problems are just how things are.

So if you've got something you can't quite get built — a prototype that's stalled, a drone that needs to be smarter, a store that's too slow, a board that needs firmware — that's the conversation I want. Bring me the thing nobody else wants to touch. I'm still the guy at the workbench in Cave Creek. I'd just rather build your idea than only my own.

How to work with me

You don't have to guess how this starts.

No forms into a void. Here's exactly what happens.

01

Tell me the problem

One message describing what you're trying to build — or what's stuck. The first conversation is free, and it's a real one, not a sales call.

02

I tell you the honest path

The shortest real route to production, whether that's a weekend or a quarter — and whether I'm even the right person for it.

03

I build it

End to end, one person accountable. You always know who wrote the code and who to call when you need a change.

From the workbench

What I'm building right now.

A running log from the bench — drones, boards, benchmarks, and whatever's in front of me this week.

Read the blog
Straight answers

Common questions

What does Parkk Technology build?

Custom AI and autonomous systems, hardware and firmware, banking and fintech software, and high-performance e-commerce. Parkk Technology is my engineering practice — I take on the work that doesn't fit a single lane, from training a model to routing the PCB it runs on.

Who will actually work on my project?

Me — Jason Ratzlaff. There's no sales team handing your build to juniors. One senior engineer is accountable from the first conversation to the shipped result, and that same person answers your email.

Do you work with clients outside Arizona?

Yes. I'm based in Cave Creek, Arizona, and work with clients across the United States remotely. On-site time is available when a project needs it.

How do we get started?

Tell me what you're trying to build — or what's stuck — through the contact page, email jason@parkk.com, or call 805-610-2074. The first conversation is free, and I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right fit.

Let's build

Tell me what you're trying to build.

A prototype that's stalled. A store that's too slow. A drone that needs to be smarter. A board that needs firmware. Bring me the thing nobody else wants to touch.

    jason@parkk.com github.com/parkktech Cave Creek, Arizona