Background & Approach

Engineering with a founder’s perspective.

I build full-stack products end-to-end — architecture, interface, and outcome. I’ve founded a company, managed a venue, and shipped software that moves metrics. That’s not a background. That’s a perspective.

Matthew Mercado

The Journey

Mount St. Mary's UniversityB.S. Computer Science, Summa Cum Laude

The degree gave me the foundation. Everything after gave me the perspective.

Escape This FrederickManager & Web Developer

Rebuilt the digital presence from scratch — Lighthouse 52→97, conversion rate doubled to 5%, bounce rate cut by 35%, #1 local SEO position. Also designed the physical side: custom Arduino circuits and PLC logic behind several of the venue's award-winning puzzle rooms.

Escape DirectorFounder & Lead Engineer

Running operations firsthand showed me the gaps — gamemasters flying blind, operators with no real data. So I built the solution: the most intuitive gamemaster dashboard in the industry paired with an analytics engine that gives operators actual insight. A service worker caches auth and room data for 24 hours so rooms keep running through connectivity drops. Over 6,000 rooms managed. 99.99% uptime.

Level Up VRDesigner & Frontend Engineer

Designed and built a web presence for a location-based VR arcade entirely from scratch. No templates. It now ranks #1 for VR in the city — outperforming established venues that have been there for years.

BoxSoftware Engineering Intern

Implemented social media link unfurling with React and Redux, and wrote automated Gherkin test suites with Webdriver.io. A different scale than running your own product — and a valuable one.

What I’m Looking For

I want to work on hard problems with people who hold the bar high — teams where the engineering is serious and the product actually matters to users. I bring full-stack range, a founder’s sense of ownership, and a track record of shipping things that work. If that sounds like your team, I’d like to hear about it.