Riley J. Shaw

/ About

I am a programmer, interface designer, and noisemaker. Rooted in repair and craft, I strive to create transparent, remixable digital tools for a sustainable and accessible future. I run a studio called Misery & Co. and am taking commissions.

Throughout my career, I have developed software tools for education and live collaboration, with my work gaining recognition on platforms like NPR, CBC, HuffPost, and Canadian Business. Beyond software, I also find joy in the tangible creativity of hardware design.

A commitment to mentorship and community has been a guiding force for me. I am a proud graduate of the Recurse Center and the School for Poetic Computation. I have a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, with a focus on human-computer interaction.

I have the dubious honor of being recognized as one of Canada’s 30 Under 30 developers.

If you care to follow along, please subscribe to my website.

Where I’ve been

  • Misery & Co. Founder

    Misery & Co. is a development studio specializing in novel mixed-media projects. I founded the studio in 2018.

  • Mischief Makers

    I volunteer at Mischief Makers, a creative space for kids in Toronto.

  • Mozilla Staff Software Engineer

    I worked at Mozilla on the Open Innovation team, supporting Common Voice. Common Voice is a landmark consent-driven dataset for human speech of all types, spanning over 60 languages. Common Voice is an open, inclusive, and privacy-conscious standard for a technology that is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Here are some highlights of my time there:

    • I joined as the team’s sole engineer, one month before a major partnership project was due. The project was estimated for three months but we somehow released on time.
    • I then helped oversee and implement a major infrastructure migration for one of the largest open source voice datasets.
    • I enabled recording on mobile browsers, opening the contribution process to many more people.
    • ISSIP Excellence In Service Innovation Award.
    • Fast Company Innovation By Design Award Finalist.

  • Repair Matters

    I used to volunteer with Repair Matters, a Vancouver-based initiative that empowers people to take part in repair and fix their stuff. I was interviewed by the CBC for the work we did together.

  • School for Poetic Computation

    I attended the School for Poetic Computation in early 2018, where I kept a blog. My goal was to focus on:

    • Education and the reinforcement of class structures.
    • Deletion, permanence, and consistency.
    • Repurposing corporate tools.
    • Making friends.
    • Making nothing.

    My final project was about depression, which was a surprise for me. Here’s a link to my application for the program. I learned a lot about art and about myself. I’m grateful for the experience.

  • Khan Academy

    I spent three years on the Engineering team at Khan Academy. Here are some highlights:

    • I rewrote the video page and player, reducing load time by over 100%.
    • I created and led KA’s first optimization team.
    • I built this interface as the sole developer on LearnStorm 2017 🎉.
    • I led our formal mentorship program.
    • Over 3 years, I deleted more lines of code than I added.

    For most of my time at Khan Academy I worked remotely from Toronto, Canada. I’m honored to have worked with such brilliant and passionate folks.

  • Canada Learning Code

    I spent years as a volunteer mentor and instructor with Canada Learning Code. I mostly worked within these branches:

    Curriculum content ranged from teaching girls how to make video games to helping teachers learn more about digital privacy.

  • Developer 30 Under 30

    I won this award in early 2017. I wrote about it here.

  • Signal Desktop

    Duing the Winter Break of Code, I pitched in on Signal’s desktop app. Spending the morning on an important OSS project and the afternoon in the ocean was pretty close to perfect.

  • Recurse Center

    I attended RC in early 2014. While there, I worked on:

    My favorite projects were the spontaneous collaborations that happened each day, most of which aren’t listed here. I had a wonderful time.

    In 2021 I helped build RC’s virtual space, RC Together. I am also part of the interviewer team for Recurse Center. Care to apply?

For a full history of my employment, please see my LinkedIn.

About this website

This website aggregates content that I’ve littered across the Internet; think of it like a digital landfill. I wrote a small utility to scrape the web which runs daily. I structured my website this way to regain ownership of the collection and presentaton of my data.

If you like the idea of website-as-API, I have specific feeds that you can subscribe to.

To respect your privacy, this site does not, and will never, track usage data. Most website owners do not share this proclivity. To reclaim some privacy, check out Privacy Badger and Deletion Day. This site is free software under the GNU GPLv3 license and follows the Contributor Covenant.

The managers tell us that the swimmers, crawlers, walkers, and fliers spent their lives working in order to eat. These managers are broadcasting their news too soon. The varied beings haven’t all been exterminated yet. You, reader, have only to mingle with them, or just watch them from a distance, to see that their waking lives are filled with dances, games, and feasts. Even the hunt, the stalking and feinting and leaping, is not what we call Work, but what we call Fun. The only beings who work are inmates like us.

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