John Ruelas — Staff Software Engineer

About

Hi, I'm John.

I'm a software engineer focused on backend systems and data infrastructure. Currently, I work as a staff software engineer at Ramp, where I joined the accounting platform team in 2026.

I have worked in software for more than a decade, but my background began in hardware and neuroscience. As a student, I built an open-source 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG) system, designed to replace more expensive commercial systems. I published all of the design files publicly. That work led me to found a startup building wearable EEG headsets. I later spent a few years in a biophysics laboratory at Cornell University, where I designed the sampling platform and interface layer for CMOS sensor chips capable of recording electrochemical signals from single living cells. I co-authored three peer-reviewed papers from that research.

My work shifted from hardware to software over the following years. Since then I have built data platforms and distributed backend services, and worked extensively on large-scale data ingestion and processing. I have also led engineering teams responsible for that infrastructure.

I live in upstate New York, where I spend most of my free time building furniture in my woodshop and fostering dogs.