Elijah Munn
Forward Deployed Engineer — Maps, Data Viz & 3D
Profile
Forward Deployed Engineer and creative developer working at the seam between design and engineering. I embed directly with clients and field operators to ship pragmatic, production-grade software under real-world constraints — interactive web maps, geospatial tooling, and immersive 3D — owning work end-to-end from design through deployment, and serving as the cross-team technical lead who diagnoses full-stack failures and keeps deployed systems running.
Experience
Forward Deployed Engineer — Munn Studio
2020 — Present · San Francisco- Embed directly with clients and field operators to ship pragmatic tooling under real-world constraints — from interactive web maps to live 3D systems.
- Serve as cross-team technical lead during integrations, translating between technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Root-cause full-stack failures with incomplete visibility and keep deployed systems running in production.
Creative Developer (Maps · Data Viz · 3D) — Independent / Studio Partners
2018 — Present · Remote- Build interactive maps and data-driven 3D experiences for studios, founders, and institutions.
- Own work end-to-end from design through deployment, including geospatial pipelines rendering millions of features in real time.
Projects
An urban-foresight platform that splits cities into hexagonal cells carrying 100+ metrics across demographics, housing, health, mobility and equity — letting planning teams fork policy scenarios, model agent-based outcomes, and see who benefits before decisions unfold.
deck.gl · Mapbox · H3 · Agent-based
An audio-reactive lighting director that separates music into stems, uses an attention model to pick the focus of each frame, and lets Claude compose bar-level light patterns — driving real DMX hardware and a live Three.js visualizer.
Three.js · Web Audio · Claude API · Python
A full redesign of the Media Lab's web presence — scraping 600+ live records into a typed content layer and presenting people, projects and events through a 3D-accented, cross-linked editorial system.
Next.js · Three.js · GSAP · Data
An urban-intelligence platform that fuses building, transit, demographic and environmental data across whole regions — rendering millions of buildings with deck.gl and Mapbox, scoring walkability and 15-minute-city access, and modelling policy scenarios in real time.
deck.gl · Mapbox · PostGIS · Next.js
The next iteration of Cookflow — a faster, cleaner recipe experience that walks you through cooking step by step, with scalable ingredients and a focused, distraction-free interface.
Next.js · Web App · Design · Cooking
The original Cookflow — a clean recipe app for collecting and cooking from, stripping away the clutter and ad-noise of a typical food blog to get you from list to plate.
Next.js · Web App · Design · Cooking
Skills
- Languages
- TypeScript / JavaScript, Python, GLSL, SQL
- Frontend & 3D
- React, Next.js, Three.js, React Three Fiber, WebGL, GSAP, Framer Motion
- Maps & Geospatial
- deck.gl, Mapbox GL, H3, PostGIS, Turf.js
- Practice
- Forward deployment, Field support, Cross-team integration, Data visualization, Design systems
Education
- — — Add your degree / programYear