Chase W. Norton

Summary

Three-time founder and staff-level engineer who builds fast and owns everything end-to-end. Built internal tooling at PayPal scale and solo-built entire products from nothing. 16 years between startups and scaled companies. Best with high autonomy, small teams, and a bias toward shipping.

Experience
Co-Founder & CTO — Hana, Inc., San Francisco
Jan 2025 – Present
Solo-built the entire platform—frontend, API, infrastructure, billing—no other engineers.
  • 15-agent AI pipeline turning raw product listings into styled photography without merchant intervention
  • Durable workflow system handling long-running image generation with automatic failure recovery
  • Real-time dashboard with distributed state sync across async workers; credit billing, i18n
  • 90%+ test coverage across the full stack—production-grade from day one
Staff Engineer & Tech Lead — Nuna Inc., Remote
Jan 2024 – Jan 2025
Led a small team shipping a healthcare analytics platform from zero to GA in 4 months.
  • 8-engineer team building Medicare Advantage analytics for payers covering ~1M lives
  • Built AI-assisted query tools for clinical data; HL7/FHIR healthcare standards
  • Scoped it, staffed it, shipped it—discovery to GA in one quarter
Founder — Message AI, Honolulu
Nov 2022 – Aug 2023
AI accessible via text message—no app, no account, no friction.
  • Launched on SMS and WhatsApp using GPT-4; 45% support deflection, 25% OCR adoption
  • Voice integration, image recognition, mood/intent engine, GDPR-compliant data handling
Staff Software Engineer — PayPal, San Jose / Remote
Jun 2018 – Nov 2022
Built the internal tooling layer PayPal's merchant platform ran on—9M daily sessions, global jurisdictions.
  • Owned RBAC and multi-user access system securing every merchant-facing tool; led multi-jurisdiction features
  • Promoted from Senior; 11 peer recognition awards; created architecture sessions for new engineers
Founder — Chase Life, Honolulu
2013 – 2018
Websites & e-commerce for Hawaii small businesses. 10+ builds; ~35% avg revenue lift.
Data Scientist — State of Hawaiʻi
2008 – 2013
ML for rainfall prediction. Two first-authored papers in J. Geophysical Research.
Projects
bitesize.online
Zero-knowledge encrypted sharing tool. Built it because I needed it.
The Intelligent Shift
Daily AI newsletter, 364 subscribers.
Claude Code Workshops
Weekly free sessions teaching non-technical people how to use AI.
Skills
TypeScript Python React Next.js Remix NestJS Distributed Systems Agent Architecture Internal Tooling
Education
MS, Meteorology (Applied ML) UH Mānoa
Grad Coursework, Software Eng. Harvard Extension

Chase W. Norton

February 6, 2026
Re: Engineer, Internal Tooling

I've founded three companies. I know what it's like to be the person who has to build the thing, fix the thing, and decide what the thing should be—all at the same time. That's the mode I work best in, and from what I understand, that's exactly what this role is.

I've spent 16 years alternating between startups and scaled systems. At PayPal, I built internal platforms that secured 9M merchant sessions a day—RBAC, multi-user access, global jurisdiction logic. That was internal tooling at massive scale, and I learned what it means when your tools are the thing that makes or breaks everyone else's workflow. At Nuna, I took a small team from discovery to GA in four months on a healthcare analytics platform. And most recently, I solo-built an entire AI-powered Shopify app—frontend, API, distributed workers, billing, the works—because I wanted to prove I could ship a full product alone. I did.

What I think matters for this role: I'm fast, I'm independent, and I have strong opinions about what good tools look like because I've been the user of bad ones. I've built internal tools, external platforms, and developer-facing products. I know how to talk to the people using what I build, figure out what's actually slowing them down, and fix it without waiting for a spec.

I also understand startups from the inside. I've gone through the early-stage chaos three times. I know what founders need because I've been one. Building tools for a place like YC—where the whole point is making startups more successful—feels like a natural fit for everything I've done.

I'm in San Francisco. I'm ready now. Happy to talk whenever works.

Chase Norton
chase@redeux.ai · 706-264-4568