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Ryan Roemer

Ryan Roemer

CEO & Co-Founder

Ryan Roemer is the CEO and co-founder of Formidable. Technically, he architects full-stack web applications, backend services and APIs, and highly available cloud infrastructures. Ryan leads development groups from small startups all the way up to Fortune 500 engineering teams. He advises clients on issues ranging from technology evaluation and engineering organizational structures to successfully leveraging open source software.

Prior to Formidable, Ryan's work has explored most levels of the modern application stack, including backend services enhancements for Microsoft Azure's Cloud Computing/Storage platform, wrangling large-scale data mining at IP Street, and directing development from scratch on a new language learning product at Curiosity Media.

Outside of engineering, Ryan enjoys trail running, cycling, triathlons, and Type II Fun in general. He is a registered patent attorney (inactive), and although he keeps a close eye on open source legal issues, it has been a long time since he has put on his lawyer hat. Ryan holds degrees from Stanford, UCLA, and UC San Diego.

The awkward valley to ESM: Node.js, Victory, and D3

June 15, 2022
We continue our examination of the shift to ESM on Node.js and broader ramifications for the ecosystem. In this post, we look at the challenges and lessons in handling ESM-only dependencies in our Victory charting library.
Ryan Roemer
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Getting Started with (and Surviving) Node.js ESM

November 9, 2021
The Node.js ecosystem is shifting towards ESM. We examine what lies in store for application and library authors, learn some of challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Node.js developers, and provide tips and tricks for surviving the bumpy transition ride ahead.
Ryan Roemer
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trace-pkg: Package Node.js apps for AWS Lambda and beyond

December 15, 2020
Packaging Node.js applications for the cloud can be slow and tedious. We introduce trace-pkg, a general purpose tool to quickly and efficiently package up your application code and dependencies for deployment in AWS Lambda and beyond!
Ryan Roemer
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Jetpack: trace your way to faster and smaller Serverless packages

April 2, 2020
Want faster-than-ever-before packaging speeds combined with the smallest possible bundle size for your Serverless Framework application? Come meet the new tracing mode for the 'serverless-jetpack' plugin!
Ryan Roemer
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Jetpack: multiple engines for your Serverless packaging and more!

June 11, 2019
The 'serverless-jetpack' plugin continues its mission to make Serverless Framework packaging and deployment rocket-fast with new features including parallel build workers, full monorepo support, and a dedicated packaging CLI.
Ryan Roemer
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Jetpack revisited: Even faster Serverless packaging and deploys

May 28, 2019
After introducing the 'serverless-jetpack' plugin two weeks ago, we took the entire problem back to the drawing board and came up with an even faster and more robust method of packaging and deploying Serverless Framework applications.
Ryan Roemer
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Jetpack: blazingly fast Serverless packaging and deploys

May 14, 2019
The Serverless Framework is amazing, but can become incredibly slow to package and deploy applications as projects grow. We introduce the 'serverless-jetpack' plugin, a drop-in replacement for normal Serverless behavior, that offers significantly faster packaging and deployment speed.
Ryan Roemer
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Locking down AWS Serverless applications, the right way

March 14, 2019
Backend services built with the Serverless Framework on AWS Lambda are enormously popular and powerful, but unfortunately often difficult to secure in the cloud. We present the terraform-aws-serverless project, which provides battle-tested, fine-grained IAM privilege isolation to help lock down your Serverless Framework applications.
Ryan Roemer
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Finding and fixing duplicates in webpack with Inspectpack

October 31, 2018
Needlessly duplicated dependencies produce larger, slower web applications. Let's embark on a deep dive into how npm and webpack work, see how inefficient duplicates can arise, and learn how the Inspectpack duplicates plugin can help.
Ryan Roemer
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Introducing Publish-Diff

October 19, 2016
Publishing JavaScript projects to the npm registry is an exercise that, while commonplace, is often opaque to developers and fraught with peril. The opacity comes from projects frequently publishing built files that are omitted from git source and some subtle but important differences...
Ryan Roemer
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Backbone.js with React Views

November 21, 2014
On Nov. 18, 2014, I presented a talk on “Backbone.js with React Views” at the inaugural Seattle ReactJS Meetup. Backbone.js Backbone.js powers some of the largest web applications on the Internet and we use the framework extensively at Formidable Labs. It provides simple and flexible...
Ryan Roemer
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Making JavaScript Tests Fast, Easy, & Friendly

August 11, 2014
A few weeks ago, I presented a talk on “Making JavaScript Tests Fast, Easy, & Friendly” at the CascasdiaJS 2014 conference in Portland, OR. The talk looks beyond the traditional technical details of wiring up test frameworks and focuses on creating processes and environments that...
Ryan Roemer
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