Justin Paige—Founding engineer at Railbird Exchange, acquired by DraftKings. Now building the platform that brings it all together.

I started my engineering journey studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California. I’d always been interested in systems, design, and the artistic process of building things, but it didn’t fully click that software was my niche until the end of college.

In high school I channeled that energy through the engineering magnet program at my school and through music. I studied and practiced mixing, started DJing events, including a regular gig at my local trampoline park, and ended up doing that professionally through much of college. It was a weird mix of creativity, engineering, and figuring things out as I went. I also spent plenty of time playing video games and tinkering with computers, but I wasn’t writing much code yet.

Once I got to USC it felt like opportunities were everywhere. I spent some time working with the USC Racing team, using CATIA to design components for our mini-F1 combustion vehicle. It was exciting to take real-world testing feedback and turn it into new designs, but something still felt slightly off. I enjoyed Mechanical Engineering, but I enjoyed my programming classes more—so I added a Computer Programming minor.

My first real software opportunity came when a friend raised funding to build a decentralized social media platform called Kwil. I learned React, Node, and JavaScript while working on the project through the end of my junior year and into my senior year. At that point I knew I wanted to pursue software seriously.

Around that time Kwil moved its team to Austin while I stayed in Southern California. That gave me the chance to double down on my fundamentals through Codesmith, where I focused on developing a more professional engineering workflow.

While I was there I discovered Svelte, and near the end of the program I started working on an open-source devtool with a few engineers I met there.

The project, Canopy, ended up getting some traction in the community, but after a few months I needed to find full-time work. That search ultimately led me to a new event contracts startup backed by Y Combinator—Railbird Exchange.

At Railbird, I spent several years helping build the platform from the ground up: frontends, APIs, and the internal systems needed to operate in a regulated environment while pursuing approval from the CFTC. When I first started working there I remember trying to explain event contracts to people and almost no one had heard of them. Watching that industry grow—and getting to contribute to it through my work—has been an incredible experience.

Railbird was eventually acquired by DraftKings, where I now work as a Senior Software Engineer helping scale, monitor, and develop the DK Predict platform.

Today my work focuses on designing frontend systems, integrating complex APIs, and making sure data flows cleanly between services and the UI. I care a lot about the details that make software feel solid—performance, consistency, and systems that hold up under real usage.

Lately I’ve also been experimenting with AI-assisted development workflows, exploring how these tools can speed up engineering while still keeping systems understandable and maintainable.