Open to selected consulting/Los Angeles, CA/Systems Software Architect @ Qualus/May 2026

Personal portfolio

Ala Arab

Full-stack developer building web products and the unglamorous tools that keep them running.

I like software that is honest about what it does and stays that way once the demo is over.

ala@portfolio:~$ — zshinteractive
Ala Arab — interactive shell. Type help and hit enter.
ala@portfolio:~$ whoami
Ala Arab · Full-stack developer · Los Angeles, California
ala@portfolio:~$

New here? type help or ls the projects — arrow keys for history, tab to complete. Or just keep scrolling ↓

Featured work

Selected work

Two threads run through most of the open-source side. Tooling for AI coding agents that fixes the "forgets everything between sessions" problem, and tooling for my own music — I produce electronic music in Ableton and started writing the plugins and bridges I kept wishing existed.

Currently building

Current · 2026

Intrapath

Personal rewrite of the project-based ERP I built and ran at ADM for a decade. React on Bun this time, with a better take on how project management and workflow want to be modeled.

  • Successor to Intranet
  • React + Bun
  • Workflow-first data model

An ERP that's actually conducive to project management and workflow — not a system that survived because everyone learned to work around it.

  • React
  • Bun
  • TypeScript
Open source · 2026Agent tooling

Phren

Persistent memory for AI coding agents. Findings, tasks, and patterns stay as markdown in a git repo you own.

  • 54 MCP tools
  • FTS5 + semantic fallback
  • Claude / Copilot / Cursor / Codex

Agents stop forgetting. Context starts flowing automatically across sessions, projects, and machines.

  • TypeScript
  • MCP
  • Turborepo
  • Node.js
Open source · 2026

OGrid

Spreadsheet behavior for any table. Headless React hooks for inline edit, range select, the fill handle, and copy/paste.

  • Headless hooks
  • Drops onto shadcn / Material / Fluent
  • MIT licensed

Teams get real spreadsheet interactions on the table chrome they already use, without adopting a heavy grid framework.

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Headless UI
  • npm
Open source · 2026Music tooling

m4l-builder

Max for Live devices written in Python instead of clicked together in a GUI. Pure standard library, ships to PyPI.

  • 90+ DSP blocks
  • 880+ tests
  • Reverse-engineering pipeline

Audio devices become scriptable, reproducible, and version-controllable instead of being trapped in a visual editor.

  • Python
  • Max for Live
  • Audio DSP
  • PyPI
Open source · 2026Music tooling

LiveMCP

An MCP bridge for Ableton Live. Controller-first interface for transport, views, tracks, clips, devices, and the mixer, plus stable read resources for current state.

  • 220 tools
  • Tools + live:// / max:// / docs:// resources
  • macOS / Windows / WSL

An agent can investigate a Live set or drive a session without the operator clicking through Ableton's UI.

  • Python
  • MCP
  • Ableton Live
  • FastMCP
Open source · 2026Agent tooling

Atlas

A full ITSM platform you run in the browser. On top of the ticket views, Atlas mirrors every ticket to disk as markdown and exposes them to any AI tool through MCP, so the same queue lives in your editor and your agents too.

  • 14 typed MCP tools
  • Loopback-only, read-only allowlist
  • Sigstore + SBOM releases

Service management runs in the browser, while the same tickets become a corpus your editor and your agents can both read.

  • Bun
  • Hono
  • D3
  • MCP
  • Biome

Previously

Flagship product · 2013 to 2023

Intranet ERP

The project-based ERP I built and grew into ADM Associates' system of record, then licensed to outside clients.

  • ~82 tables, ~50 controllers
  • Replaced Deltek Vision company-wide
  • Licensed to outside clients

One platform for project management, budgeting, accounting, and workflows that replaced Deltek Vision across the company.

  • Ruby on Rails
  • PostgreSQL
  • MS SQL
  • Docker
  • GitHub Actions

Background

Experience

2025 to presentLos Angeles, CA

Systems Software Architect

Qualus Corp

Architecting database management systems for client portfolios, plus the internal tools and automation that move data across the company — CRM through APIs into Power BI and Tableau reporting. Stack is Node, React, and Angular sitting on top of the databases.

2012 to 2025Sacramento, CA

IT Engineer, then Systems Software Engineer

ADM Associates, Inc.

Thirteen years, starting in IT and moving into systems software. Built and ran a stack of internal apps — Intranet (the project-based ERP that replaced Deltek Vision, on PostgreSQL + Rails), EMV (MongoDB), an Equipment Tracker (PostgreSQL + Node) — and most of the company's web presence. Stood up the data science infrastructure so analysts could deploy R workloads to R Server and ship Shiny apps. Ran the Linux fleet, the multi-database backend (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL), and the SOC 2 environment underneath all of it. Helped grow the engineering team and stood up CI/CD on GitHub Actions.

2019Sacramento, CA

IT Consultant

Greater Sacramento Pediatrics Association

Proposed and implemented system enhancements while documenting existing and new processes for the IT support team. Migrated the domain and email to Office 365 and ran the server fleet in a VMware environment.

2012 to 2013Sacramento, CA

IT Engineer

Matrix Energy Services, Inc.

Worked alongside project managers to lead web application development for a retrofit program in Maryland. Built iPad apps, Ruby on Rails services, and Excel-based tooling for migrating data between systems and databases. Wrote and ran the test procedures, and redeveloped the company website.

2011San Diego, CA

Computer Science Developer

UC San Diego TIES — Town and Country Learning Center

Designed and built the web interface for a Garden Sensor Network that turned incoming JSON sensor readings — light, temperature, moisture — into something the Learning Center could actually act on. Also extended a UCSD Music Video Game written in Processing. Worked across CS, electrical, and mechanical engineering teams to bring inventive ideas into the center.

2008 to 2009Santa Cruz, CA

Campus Marketing, Advertising, and Technical Support

Dell

Dell's on-campus presence at UC Santa Cruz. Provided technical support to students and parents on the Dell product line with a sales goal, and ran on-campus marketing strategies with a partner.

Contact

Say hi.

Product work, internal tooling, or selected consulting. Email lands; LinkedIn works; the resume is a click away.