Rachel Inman
Software Engineer · New York
Software engineer with six years of experience, currently building UI frameworks in C++ for wearable devices at Meta Reality Labs. Previously, I worked as a full-stack engineer at a Series C startup and a Fortune 500 company. Lately I've been enjoying systems work, API design, and building developer-facing infrastructure.
About me
I'm interested in abstractions and how to model complex systems effectively.
Majoring in philosophy was a fun way to study this in theory, and working with software is a fun way to study it in practice. I enjoy transforming real-world messiness into simple, elegant solutions while respecting the limits of our ability to do so.
My philosophy on work
- Collaboration and autonomy are friends
- Pay attention to the bugs under rocks
- Before you solve a problem, make sure it's useful
- Respectful, open communication matters
Favorite engineering moments
- Spending an hour debugging a frontend issue only to discover the user's browser extension was rewriting the page
- Going down a rabbit hole investigating a flaky CI failure that turned out to be much bigger than anyone expected
- My first real production feature: replacing hardcoded strings to internationalize a web app
Where I've been
Why did you major in philosophy?
Philosophy was personally significant to me in my teens and gave me tools to examine the evangelical worldview I grew up in.
My philosophical interests center around epistemology and ethics. In junior year, I focused on the epistemology of disagreement: the conditions under which it's sensible to change your mind when someone disagrees with you. In senior year, I wrote my thesis, advised by Peter Singer, on the ethics of distributed vs. individual responsibility, using climate change as a lens.
What I'm looking for
I enjoy building practical solutions to ambiguous problems. I value being detail-oriented. I seek out environments that value open, respectful communication, autonomy, and collaboration. Reach out for a resume at rachel.inman@protonmail.com.