Bryan Puckett ✺ Computer Engineer · Developer & Analyst ✺ Miami, FL

Miami, FL · Computer engineer, developer & data analyst

I build the system, then read what it tells you

Ten years building database-driven applications and the SQL reporting that runs on top of them: requirements through launch, and support after. B.S. Computer Engineering from FIU, with the M.S. underway there now. U.S. Army veteran with an active DoD Secret clearance.

See what I've built Get in touch

LinkedIn ↗ GitHub ↗ Bryan.Puckett@Outlook.com

Roles I'm after FPGA / Firmware Engineer · Embedded / Systems Engineer · Software Developer · Systems Analyst · Data / BI Analyst · Business Analyst
3.74GPA · Magna Cum Laude
M.S. '27Computer Eng · FIU
SecretActive DoD clearance
10 yrsRunning my own tech business
VeteranU.S. Army · 2013–2019

( 01 ) · The short version

Ten years of doing the work,
then the degree to go with it.

Since 2016 I've run my own technical services company, building database-driven web applications, SQL reporting, and the systems small businesses run on. That means the whole life cycle: working out what's actually needed, turning it into requirements, building it, testing it, documenting it, and picking up the phone when something breaks a year later.

Before that I spent six years in the U.S. Army Reserve as a medical logistics specialist, running SAP-based enterprise systems to zero-error, audit-ready standards in a regulated environment. Root-cause analysis on a broken process was the job. It's still most of what I enjoy.

In August 2026 I finished a B.S. in Computer Engineering at Florida International University (ABET, Magna Cum Laude), with hands-on work in embedded systems, FPGA design, and networking, and I'm continuing there for the M.S. in Computer Engineering (Emerging Technologies) with coursework in applied AI, IoT, data engineering, and machine learning. What I'm looking for now is engineering, developer, or analyst work: building the firmware, the system, or the pipeline, and then turning what it produces into one answer leadership can act on.

  • LocationMiami, FL · open to relocating within Florida
  • ClearanceActive DoD Secret
  • Veteran statusU.S. Army veteran · 2013–2019
  • CitizenshipU.S. Citizen
  • DegreeB.S. Computer Engineering, ABET
  • ConferredAugust 2026 · Magna Cum Laude
  • GPA3.74 · Dean's List, 6 terms
  • Graduate studyM.S. Computer Engineering, FIU '27

( 02 ) · Experience

Three very different jobs,
one way of working.

Mar 2016 – PresentMiami, FL

Owner / Head of Development

South Florida Media Design · independent technical services

  • Design, build, test, and deploy database-driven web applications and IT systems for clients, owning the full life cycle: requirements gathering, development, testing, launch, and ongoing support.
  • Build and query SQL databases, develop operational reports, and automate routine data tasks with Python, Bash, and advanced Excel. Version control in Git.
  • Translate non-technical client needs into working technical solutions, then document the procedure so the result is repeatable without me in the room.
  • Perform systems analysis, troubleshoot application and infrastructure issues, and coordinate enhancements and testing with clients and outside vendors.
PythonSQLJavaScriptBashGitRequirements gatheringDocumentationVendor coordination
May 2024 – PresentMiami Intl. Airport

Operations Manager, Manager-by-Rotation Program

American Airlines · MIA hub

  • Monitor and analyze real-time operational data across mission-critical enterprise platforms (Sabre, Raptor, and GS Realtime) to keep gate and ramp operations on schedule.
  • Identify issues in live data, coordinate fixes under tight deadlines, and communicate findings to both technical staff and leadership.
  • Fleet Service Agent selected for the Manager-by-Rotation program; ran ramp and gate operations as manager on duty for close to a year. Moved from shadowing to independently running gate and ramp operations within two weeks, and covered manager responsibilities through peak holiday and summer operations.
  • Recommended to hub leadership by the 2024 union board on the strength of operational performance and frontline relationships.
SabreRaptorGS RealtimeReal-time dataCross-functionalStakeholder comms
Oct 2013 – Dec 2019U.S. Army Reserve

Medical Logistics Specialist (68J)

U.S. Army Medical Corps · Washington, DC & Miami, FL

  • Managed regulated data across SAP-based enterprise ERP systems (TEWLS, DCAM) to zero-error, audit-ready standards in a HIPAA-regulated environment.
  • Analyzed process bottlenecks and implemented improvements that cut turnaround time by 25%.
  • Ran inventory, procurement, and distribution across Army medical facilities, including shelf-life control of Class VIII materiel.
  • Trained 50+ personnel on systems, compliance, and safety procedures. Certificate of Achievement, 99th Regional Support Command.
TEWLS (SAP)DCAMAudit & reconciliationRoot-cause analysisHIPAATraining

( 03 ) · Featured project

GrowthPulse: firmware to dashboard,
an IoT system start to finish.

GrowthPulse logo

My senior design capstone at FIU, where I was team lead for a five-person team and owned most of the implementation. Devices in the field stream readings into a cloud pipeline; a React web app and a native iOS app sit on top with real accounts, per-account data isolation, live dashboards, history charts, and alerts. It's deployed and running today: a closed loop from raw telemetry to something a user can act on. ESP32 firmware on a Heltec WiFi LoRa 32 V3 node with soil moisture, temperature, humidity, and water flow sensing, dual-transport Wi-Fi/LoRaWAN failover, cloud telemetry, a React dashboard, and a SwiftUI iOS app. The prototype beat its design targets: 6 km of LoRaWAN range against a 2 km goal, 100 nodes against 10, and about 300 mW per node against a 500 mW power budget.

What I built

  • The React 18 + Vite dashboard: real accounts, per-account data isolation, live readings, a 0–100 health score, trend charts with ideal bands, and alerting. Installable as a PWA.
  • The Postgres/Supabase schema and device registry with row-level security, plus claim-by-code pairing validated against it: unknown codes rejected.
  • A serverless API layer on Netlify Functions holding the cloud credentials server-side, so no token ever reaches the browser.
  • The cloud telemetry pipeline (device → MQTT → device cloud → serverless function → app), tested to 100 concurrent devices against a 10-device target.
  • A native SwiftUI iOS app running against the same live backend, beyond the original deliverables list.
  • Automatic device provisioning (which removed the manual registration step that had been causing repeated failures) and a branded captive-portal setup so a customer never touches a config file.
  • The ESP32 firmware on the node, dual-transport Wi-Fi/LoRaWAN networking, and a Google Home cloud-to-cloud voice integration.
  • Managed the $8,100 project budget and delivered the final showcase presentation.

Tested results vs. original targets

SpecificationAchievedTarget
Concurrent devices10010
Wireless range6 km2 km
Active power / device~300 mW500 mW
Temperature accuracy±0.5 °C±1 °C
Humidity accuracy±3% RH±5% RH
Soil moisture accuracy±5%±5%
Stack React 18 · Vite · SwiftUI · Node
Supabase (Postgres) · Losant · MQTT
Netlify Functions · ESP32 · LoRaWAN
What it taught me

Most of what went wrong was integration, not code: devices registering twice, a driver that only browned out under real load. Usually the fix started with better instrumentation rather than a rewrite.

Open the live app ↗ Watch the build (7 videos) ↗ Read the code on GitHub ↗

The video playlist runs the whole project in order: concept video, build and demo checkpoints, and the final Senior Design presentation. FIU EEL-4921C Senior Design II · Team 15 · Summer 2026

( 04 ) · Featured project

Reaction Time Tester:
a team project on a Zynq-7000 FPGA SoC

My final project for embedded computing systems, where I was team lead for a four-person team: a reaction-time game on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 SoC (Zybo Z7-20), which pairs FPGA fabric with an ARM Cortex-A9 processor. Flip all four switches to start, wait a random 3 to 5 seconds for the LEDs, and press any button: the processor's private timer measures the reaction in milliseconds, and after five rounds the board reports best, worst, and average times over UART. The switches, the buttons, and a custom AXI4-Lite LED peripheral built in an earlier lab sit in the programmable logic, and the C code reaches them as memory-mapped registers.

What it shows

  • Hardware and software on one chip: custom IP in the programmable logic, C on the processor
  • A design study first: the team compared four approaches (polling, interrupts on the processor, a VHDL counter in the FPGA fabric, and a multi-mode version) and chose the interrupt-driven design. The fabric counter was set aside because human reaction times run hundreds of milliseconds and the processor timer already resolves far finer
  • Three interrupt routines prioritized in the ARM Generic Interrupt Controller: the button press captures the time, a switch change starts the game, and the timer fires the stimulus and then runs as the stopwatch
  • Lean ISRs that only snapshot the timer and set flags, with all printing in the main loop to keep latency low
  • A five-state machine (Idle, Waiting, Measuring, Scoring, Game Over) with false-start detection and a random delay seeded from the live timer
  • Low hardware risk: the verified block design from an earlier lab reused unchanged, and a hardware test plan recorded as passing on the board

Stack

Xilinx Zynq-7000 (Zybo Z7-20)VivadoXilinx SDKAXI4-LiteBare-metal CARM Cortex-A9GIC interrupts

FIU EEL 4740 Embedded Computing Systems · Final project · Team lead, team of four · Spring 2026

( 05 ) · Hardware coursework

From logic gates to a full embedded system.

At FIU I took hardware from logic gates up to a full embedded system. I started with VHDL on a Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA (Basys 3). I finished on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 SoC (Zybo Z7-20), building custom AXI4-Lite IP in Vivado, wiring interrupts and DMA between the FPGA fabric and the ARM Cortex-A9, and running bare-metal C and FreeRTOS on top. On the Linux side, I cross-compiled kernels and wrote character device drivers for a BeagleBone Black.

Along the way I packaged a custom AXI4-Lite peripheral with a VHDL generic for configurable width, placed the heap and stack in FPGA block RAM through a custom linker script and checked the result with objdump, and configured PL-to-PS interrupts through the ARM Generic Interrupt Controller.

AXI CDMA vs. CPU copy · clock cycles

  • 128 words147,256 vs. 2,273 · ~65x
  • 512 words587,531 vs. 4,001 · ~147x
  • 1,024 words1,174,653 vs. 6,323 · ~186x
  • 2,048 words2,323,256 vs. 11,039 · ~211x
  • 4,096 words4,620,601 vs. 20,426 · ~226x
  • 8,192 words9,215,307 vs. 39,259 · ~235x

A Zynq lab: an AXI Central DMA engine against a CPU copy loop, BRAM to DDR3, timed with the SCU timer. The DMA advantage grows with transfer size because the fixed setup cost is spread over more data.

EEL 4740 · Spring 2026

Embedded Computing Systems

Embedded systems design on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 FPGA SoC (Zybo Z7-20), FPGA fabric plus ARM processor. Nine labs, each turned in with a report, the source, and a demo video on the board: a VHDL up/down counter with Gray code output, AXI GPIO and a custom AXI4-Lite peripheral, a linker script, interrupts, DMA, and FreeRTOS with queues, mutexes, and semaphores.

VivadoXilinx SDKVHDLAXI4-LiteGIC interruptsFreeRTOS
EEL 3712L · Summer 2025

Logic Design I Lab

Gate-level designs on a Digilent Basys 3 (Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA): AND, OR, NOT, NAND, and NOR logic, VHDL concurrent assignments showing that NAND and NOR are universal gates, and DeMorgan's theorem verified on the board and in testbench simulation.

VHDLArtix-7Basys 3TestbenchesBoolean logic
EEL 4734 · Fall 2025

Embedded Operating Systems

Embedded Linux on a BeagleBone Black (ARM Cortex-A8): explored U-Boot, configured and cross-compiled the kernel, booted a root file system from an SD card, and wrote loadable kernel modules, including a character device driver with ioctl and a driver that blinks Morse code on an onboard LED through GPIO.

Embedded LinuxKernel modulesDevice driversU-BootCross-compilation
EEL 4709C · Fall 2025

Computer Design

How a processor works underneath: ripple-carry and carry-lookahead adders, IEEE 754 floating-point addition, MIPS assembly in QtSpim, and a single-cycle MIPS datapath with control signals and a critical-path calculation, plus multi-cycle CPI and pipelining.

MIPS assemblyQtSpimMIPS datapathComputer arithmetic

Supporting coursework

Programming Embedded Systems (EEL 4730)C++ Programming for Embedded Systems (EEL 3370)Signals and Systems (EEL 3135)Electronics I with Lab (EEE 3303C)Logic Design I (EEL 3712)Introduction to Linear Systems (EEL 3120)Circuit Analysis with Lab (EEL 3110C)

( 06 ) · Also built

Other things I've taken apart
and put back together.

№ 1

Client reporting & automation

Ten years of SQL-backed applications for real businesses: inventory systems, internal tools, operational reports, and the scripts that keep the numbers accurate without anyone re-keying them. Requirements through deployment, plus the documentation and the support call afterward.

SQLPythonAdvanced ExcelSchema designReportingGit
№ 2

southflmedia.com

My business site: hand-coded HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript, no framework and no build step, deployed on Netlify behind a DNS migration I planned and executed myself with zero email downtime.

HTML/CSSVanilla JSNetlifyDNS migrationResponsive
№ 3

Security coursework

FIU's security track, applied hands-on: ethical hacking, digital forensics, and malware reverse engineering, earning the FIU Digital Forensics Fundamental Skills badge. It changed how I think about where credentials live in a system, and who can reach them.

Digital forensicsMalware REEthical hackingNetwork security
№ 4

Operations dashboard concept

A working reporting demo on fictional data. Pick one of 24 made-up small businesses and every figure on the page, from sales and payments to inventory and alerts, is a SQL query run against that business's own SQLite database. Python builds the data and publishes the results, and each panel can show the query behind it.

SQLSQLitePythonReportingData visualization
southflmedia.com/work/harbor-dashboard ↗

( 07 ) · Toolkit

The tools I work in day to day.

Embedded & hardware

ESP32 and Cortex-A9 firmware in C · Xilinx Zynq-7000 SoC/FPGA (Vivado, Xilinx SDK) · VHDL (coursework) · Xilinx Artix-7 · custom AXI4-Lite IP · AXI DMA (CDMA) · GPIO/UART · interrupts and timers · FreeRTOS · embedded Linux device drivers · finite-state machines · sensor integration · Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN · circuits and electronics

Data & analytics

SQL (Sololearn Intermediate certified) · relational schema design · operational and management reporting · data validation and integrity · real-time operational data monitoring · advanced Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP) · reconciliation and audit workflows

Systems analysis

Requirements gathering from non-technical stakeholders · business process mapping · root-cause analysis · technical documentation · user support and training · vendor coordination · Agile/Scrum fundamentals

Languages

Python · SQL · JavaScript · C / C++ · Java · Swift · Bash · HTML & CSS

Development

Database-driven and responsive web applications · React 18 · Vite · Node · REST/JSON APIs · serverless functions · object-oriented design · software testing and debugging · Git version control · mobile application development

Enterprise platforms & security

SAP-based TEWLS · DCAM · Sabre · Raptor · GS Realtime · Windows and Linux server administration · Active Directory · DNS/DHCP · network troubleshooting · network security · digital forensics · malware reverse engineering · ethical hacking · handling regulated (HIPAA, audit-controlled) data to zero-error standards

( 08 ) · Education

The paperwork behind it.

M.S., Computer Engineering (Emerging Technologies) Florida International University · applied AI, data engineering, machine learning Completing 2027
B.S., Computer Engineering (ABET-accredited) Florida International University · conferred August 2026 GPA 3.74 · Magna Cum Laude · Dean's List, 6 terms
Associate of Arts Miami Dade College · 2024

Certifications & credentials

  • Active DoD Secret clearanceCurrent
  • Digital Forensics Fundamental Skills · FIUApr 2025
  • Python IntermediateAug 2026
  • Coding for DataAug 2026
  • SQL IntermediateMay 2026
  • Introduction to SQLMay 2026
  • Certificate of Achievement, 99th RSC2017
  • Transcripts & referencesOn request

Coursework: data structures, database management, C/C++, Python, Java, computer design, embedded systems, signals & systems, telecom networks, ethical hacking, digital forensics, malware reverse engineering, senior design.

( 09 ) · Elsewhere

Want to see it running?

Live product GrowthPulse

The senior design capstone, deployed and running. Real accounts, live device telemetry, and a demo mode you can open without signing up.

growthpulsecloud.com ↗ My company South FL Media

The technical services company I've run since 2016: client applications, websites, and the systems behind them. The site itself is hand-coded.

southflmedia.com ↗ Free for veterans Veteran Benefits App

A free site I built and run that matches disabled veterans to the federal, state, and local benefits they qualify for: 1,250+ benefits across all 50 states, DC, and 5 territories, each linked to its official source. Every deploy runs a data validator and 358 tests first.

veteranbenefitsapp.com ↗ Data pipeline at scale ROM Hack Guides

A free reference site for fan-made Pokémon games that I built and run alone. 97 Python converters turn creators' PDFs, spreadsheets, and game source code into one data model, and the build makes about 106,800 pages in 35 seconds, split across two Cloudflare Workers to clear a 100,000-file limit.

romhackguides.com ↗

( 10 ) · Get in touch

Hiring, or just curious?

I read every message myself and reply within one business day. Happy to walk through any project here in detail: the requirements, the decisions, what broke, and what I'd do differently.