David Peek

Lead / Staff Software Engineer based in Sydney, Australia AI-native systems, automation, distributed architecture

Summary

Staff-level engineer with 15+ years experience designing and shipping complex systems across frontend platforms, distributed infrastructure, and AI-native automation.
Combines deep technical execution with product and commercial understanding, with a track record of building high-leverage systems in small teams, from multi-platform video SDKs used by major broadcasters to an offline-first commercial estimation platform and a next-generation browser automation runtime.

Experience

Co-founder - OpenSurf

2025 - Present
Building an AI-native browser automation platform focused on reliable, local-first agent execution.
  • Designed and implemented a typed actor runtime for coordinating browser sessions, agents, and UI across Playwright and Chrome extension environments, using synchronized TinyBase stores and RPC-style communication.
  • Built a semantic graph and fingerprinting system to replace brittle DOM selectors with resilient, structure-aware targeting across UI changes.
  • Developed a deterministic validation platform for browser automation, enabling repeatable testing, regression detection, and safe evolution of agent behaviour.
  • Architected a local-first execution model to avoid limitations of cloud browsers (latency, blocking, auth fragility).
  • Built tooling for artefact capture, replay, and scoring of automation workflows (DOM snapshots, screenshots, semantic state).
Impact:
  • Established the core technical foundation for reliable web automation beyond script-based approaches.
  • Enabled measurable benchmarking and validation of agent performance.

Co-founder & CTO - Estii

2021 - Present
Built and operated a commercial estimation platform for services businesses, replacing spreadsheet-based workflows with a structured, real-time system.
  • Architected an offline-first, real-time collaborative system using Next.js, Replicache, and Cloudflare Durable Objects.
  • Designed a typed document graph model and shared calculation engine linking scope, pricing, scheduling, and forecasting.
  • Built a financially correct feedback loop between estimation and scheduling, handling complex pricing models (multi-currency, tiered pricing, margins, recurring services).
  • Implemented a heuristic scheduling engine exploring and ranking valid project plans under business constraints.
  • Designed an asynchronous forecasting pipeline to aggregate distributed deal data under serverless memory constraints.
  • Built full platform infrastructure: sync, schema validation (Zod), migrations, backups, exports, E2E automation, and CI/CD.
Technical scope:
  • Custom replication model with cross-entity sync (between deal and workspace).
  • Memoized calculation engine with selective invalidation.
  • Distributed data model using Durable Objects (sharded by workspace/deal).
  • Comprehensive unit, integration and E2E test suite
  • Automated product documentation pipeline (screenshots + videos update on CI)
Commercial outcomes:
  • 30 active users across 3 paying customers ($30K ARR).
  • Supported multi-million EUR deal pipelines (10M+ handled by a single customer).
  • Zero major incidents or data loss over 4+ years of operation.
Key insight: Delivered a high-complexity, financially critical system with a two-person team by investing heavily in system primitives and automation.

Director of Solution Engineering - Deltatre

2017 - 2021
Led solution design and commercial estimation for large-scale video platform integrations.
  • Owned end-to-end RFP response process for $1-5M+ deals across OTT video platforms.
  • Translated ambiguous client requirements into scoped architecture, delivery plans, and pricing models.
  • Built structured estimation workflows that later evolved into Estii.
  • Coordinated stakeholders across design, frontend, backend, video delivery, and infrastructure teams.
  • Influenced product roadmap through analysis of pipeline demand.
Scope:
  • Video ingest, encoding, DRM (Widevine, FairPlay), streaming (HLS).
  • Authentication, payments, analytics, ad integration.
  • Multi-platform frontend delivery.
Impact:
  • Developed data-driven estimation workflow that increased accuracy and improved delivery margins.
  • Key role in winning DAZN and WWE, growing revenue to $40M leading to a $130M aquisition.

Lead Frontend Engineer / Architect - Deltatre

2009 - 2017
Led development of a cross-platform application SDK powering OTT apps across web, mobile, and connected devices.
  • Built a multi-platform SDK enabling shared code across 20+ device platforms (Web, iOS, Android, Samsung, PlayStation, LG, etc.).
  • Designed a runtime abstraction layer spanning HTML, Flash, and native (OpenGL/SDL) environments.
  • Developed a UI framework, component system, and application architecture.
  • Led a team building tooling for cross-device testing and deployment.
Impact:
  • SDK used in applications for BBC, ITV, DAZN, WWE Network, Channel 5, YouView, and others.
  • Enabled reuse of application logic across a fragmented device ecosystem.

Technical Skills

  • Languages: TypeScript, JavaScript
  • Architecture: Distributed systems, offline-first sync, actor models
  • AI/Automation: LLM-driven workflows, agent systems, browser automation
  • Frontend: React, Next.js, Tailwind
  • Infrastructure: Cloudflare, AWS, Vercel
  • Data: Replicache, TinyBase, Zod, Drizzle
  • Testing: Playwright, E2E automation, deterministic validation systems