Stephen Pearse — CV (March 2026)

pearse.audio@gmail.com · LinkedIn · GitHub · spearse.github.io/portfolio

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Profile

Audio/AI engineer and former academic with 13+ years building tools for music creators. Led cross-platform DAWs, AI arrangement systems, semantic audio search, and payments platforms. Comfortable owning architecture, delivery, and team patterns from research prototypes through production releases.

Core Skills

Audio/DSP (C++/JUCE, Qt/PyQt, <10ms real-time pipelines, LUFS/EBU R128, filters/effects, hardware integration, cross-platform delivery). AI/ML systems (LLM integration with Vertex/Gemini, semantic search with MERT/CLaMP3/FAISS, streaming parsers/DSLs, PyTorch/Transformers). Full-stack/infra (NestJS, React, TypeORM, FastAPI, Chargebee/webhooks, CI/CD with signing/notarization/installers, Docker/GCP, feature flags/observability). Leadership (tech lead, interviewer, onboarding/patterns, cross-functional alignment, rapid delivery).

Experience

Density (Audio/AI tools) — Lead Software Engineer / Tech Lead / AI Design Lead (2021–Present). Led the cross-platform port of a pro DJ DAW (Mac→Mac/Windows): reworked threading/interop, built Windows CI/CD, delivered universal binaries with signing/notarization; crash rate dropped 40% (5%→3%) and releases moved from monthly to ~1.5 weeks while supporting ~2,500 DAU. Built real-time audio/DSP features (lock-free messaging, preallocated buffers, BS.1770-4 LUFS, filter modeling, fractional delay/multi-band limiting, CDJ recording). Architected the Copilot AI assistant (PyQt desktop, DensityMark DSL with streaming parser, resilient DAW connections) and delivered a semantic search pipeline (MERT→CLaMP3, FAISS) in <1 month, becoming the VC demo driver. Created CLaMP3 search with sub-100ms text/audio/hybrid queries over 10K+ files and dual deployment (local vs. GCP GPU) via batching/model reuse (15–30× speedup). Built rent-to-own/perpetual payments (NestJS/React/Chargebee) in ~2 months, keeping legacy subs intact with zero billing issues and a discount engine with precedence rules/price floors. Drove interviewing/onboarding and set patterns for cross-platform code, rollout controls, and testing across desktop and services.

Pearse Audio Consultancy — Director/Consultant (2022–2023). Contracted by Density for DSP architecture, real-time audio processing, and software design on the DAW.

University of Portsmouth, School of Creative Technologies — Senior Lecturer, Computational Sound (2011–2020). Led the music computing research group and MSc program; taught C++ audio development and spatial audio; supervised PhDs. Built the EU-funded Compose with Sounds pedagogical DAW (solo, 7 years): custom C++/Qt engine, 10 languages, Mac/Win/Linux deployment in European schools; delivered talks/papers at ADC and SMC 2019.

Selected Projects

Density Copilot (AI arrangement assistant; DSL + streaming parser; semantic search; multi-DAW integration; fundraising differentiator). Density DAW (pro DJ DAW; cross-platform port; reliability/observability; real-time DSP; hardware integration; ~2,500 DAU). CLaMP3 Audio Semantic Search (research→prod ML pipeline in <1 month; MERT→CLaMP3; FAISS; dual deployment; sub-100ms queries). Density Web Platform (RTO/payments; one-time and $15×14 RTO; Chargebee webhooks with locking; React flows; zero billing incidents). Compose with Sounds (EU-funded educational DAW; 10-language i18n; cross-platform; curriculum-aligned materials).

Education

PhD, Music Technology — University of Sheffield (2017). Thesis: “Agent-Based Graphic Sound Synthesis and Acousmatic Composition.” BMus — University of Sheffield (2010).

Publications & Talks (selected)

“No tracks or graphs? Designing sound-based educational audio workstations” — Audio Developer Conference (ADC), 2019 (talk). “Composing with Sounds: Designing an Object-Oriented DAW for the teaching of Sound-Based Composition” — Sound and Music Computing Conference, 2019. “An Agent-Based Approach to Interaction and Composition” — ICMC, 2014.

Contact

Email: pearse.audio@gmail.com Portfolio: spearse.github.io/portfolio LinkedIn: stephen-pearse-1870b050 GitHub: github.com/spearse ADC 2019 talk: YouTube SMC paper: Research Portal