Louis Grenzebach

Principal Software Engineer · Solution Architect · Prompt Engineer

Location: Eugene, Oregon
Pronouns: They/Them
Email: louis.grenzebach@gmail.com
Web: pknull.ai
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/louisg
GitHub: github.com/pknull

Summary

Three decades in software, the last nine architecting and shipping identity-protection systems at scale. Strongest where high-level systems architecture meets low-level implementation — built a company's first SSO/JWT auth platform, founded its cross-team architecture function, and led a multi-year greenfield platform rebuild that now serves ~1.7M customers. Currently driving field-level encryption, audit log standards, and AI-augmented engineering practices at Allstate Identity Protection.

Experience

Principal Software Engineer · Allstate Identity Protection

Jul 2022 – present · Remote (Eugene, OR)

Led the post-acquisition greenfield platform rebuild across the finish line; platform shipped Jan 2023, serving ~1.7M customers. Continues as a lead principal in the Solution Architecture and Design (SAD) function, driving cross-team architecture and standards.

Field Level Encryption (in flight): drives both standards authorship and platform-wide implementation, hardening protection for sensitive customer data independently of database-level encryption.
Audit Log standards & implementation (in flight): owns the org-wide standard and its rollout across services for compliance and observability.
"Trifecta interface": original architecture pattern unifying CQRS + REST under a single design (shipped, in production), with Model Context Protocol (MCP) as the planned third leg now in active design — positioning AI-agent integration as a first-class interface modality alongside existing consumers.
AI-assisted code generation (specification-driven, test-gated): authored a methodology in which standards inform tests, tests are human-reviewed, and an LLM produces code bound to those tests — treating the LLM as a constrained implementer, not a free agent.
Established the company's internal data archiving system, API standards, and security standards as part of the post-launch SAD agenda.

Senior Developer · InfoArmor / Allstate Identity Protection

Jun 2017 – Jul 2022 · Phoenix, AZ

Joined InfoArmor pre-acquisition; remained through the August 2018 Allstate buyout and rebrand to Allstate Identity Protection.

Built the company's first SSO / JWT identity & authentication platform from scratch, establishing the auth substrate that served the product through multiple platform generations.
Drove engineering-practice modernization in the first two years — including the move from git-based deployment to a Jenkins CI/CD pipeline — bringing standard practices into a small-company org, slowly and by partnership rather than mandate.
Led the post-acquisition greenfield platform rebuild (2018+), including: new CI on Buildkite in place of Jenkins, Helm-chart deployment to Kubernetes, migration of the in-house auth platform onto Auth0 (freeing engineering capacity from owning a security-critical undifferentiated service), and ongoing modernization of internal API systems.
Founded the Solution Architecture and Design (SAD) function: started as an internal initiative ~late 2019; recognized as an official function within months. SAD is the company's formal bridge between product and engineering — reviewing proposed initiatives, producing specification research, and translating research into the acceptance criteria of downstream tickets so that engineering work is informed, not ad hoc.

Member · Up9 Consulting

Jan 2008 – Dec 2021 · Phoenix, AZ (concurrent side practice)

Long-running consulting practice serving primarily K-12 and higher-ed clients. Areas of work included OS X / Linux server deployment, directory and SSO integration, SIS integration and reporting, LAMP-based application development, MySQL data warehousing, and network-based lab imaging. Notable engagements included remote Linux host deployments for a new PayPal datacenter as part of a three-person team over six months.

Senior Customer Delivery Technical Engineer · CyberSponse

Jun 2013 – Dec 2016 · Phoenix, AZ

Joined as a senior application developer (Symfony2); responsibilities expanded across operations, system architecture, and lead developer duties as the startup evolved. Designed the security mechanism for inter-service communications and the licensing system, then led the application architecture rework into microservices for geographically distributed scaling. Took on and delivered a major government client end-of-year before the company closed its Phoenix office.

Earlier roles

Unix/Linux Administrator · Bechtel (May 2007 – Feb 2008) — monitoring and audit tooling on HP-UX systems.
Systems Analyst Senior · Arizona State University (May 2006 – May 2007) — development and project lead for a data warehouse contracted to Paradise Valley USD; aggregated data nightly from ~40 source databases (DBF, SyBase, MySQL) into a Drupal-fronted query environment.
Network Applications Specialist III · Paradise Valley USD (Jan 2001 – May 2006) — gradebook development, portal management, server deployment, single sign-on development; helped establish the data warehousing initiative continued under ASU.

Selected Projects

Active personal work; full notes at pknull.ai/projects.

Asha — multi-harness AI workflow system: persistent identity, session memory, and pluginized workflows for Claude Code and Codex. Direct lineage of the same patterns brought to Allstate's code-generation methodology.
Thallus — local-first AI agent infrastructure umbrella covering Egregore, Familiar, Servitor, Scry, and thallus-core.
pknull.ai — hand-built static site (Python + Jinja2) with custom build pipeline for responsive images, JSON-LD, Atom feed, and self-hosted typography.

Skills

Languages — Python (3.10+), Go, TypeScript, Bash, SQL
AI / LLM engineering — Anthropic Claude API, prompt engineering, LLM-bound TDD methodology, multi-agent / multi-harness coordination, Model Context Protocol (MCP) design
Architecture — CQRS, REST, event-driven systems, microservices, identity & SSO design, schema- and standards-driven design
Platform & infra — Kubernetes, Helm, Docker, Buildkite, Jenkins, AWS, Auth0, PostgreSQL, MySQL
Security — field-level encryption, SSO / JWT, identity & access management, audit log standards, security architecture
Practices — TDD (London-school), cross-team standards authorship, technical writing, code review, mentorship of senior ICs