I am a software engineer, amateur oil painter, and avid reader. I constantly seek to expand my knowledge and deepen my understanding in my field as well as the humanities.
I grew up in France and moved to the United States in 2008. I have dual citizenship since 2023. I currently live in Tallahassee, Florida, with my wife, Veronica, and daughter, Penelope.
I can be reached at me@benfle.com or on the web at bluesky, github, or linkedin.
What am I doing these days?
- I'm currently looking for work! June 2025
After a 6-month break, I am looking for new professional opportunities as an employee or consultant. If you think I may be a good fit for your project based on my experience, please contact me@benfle.com or book a 30-minute call.
- Summer course: Plato's Gorgias and Phaedrus June-August 2025
I already had the pleasure and privilege to study some of Plato's dialogues with Noah Chafets so deciding to attend this summer course was a no-brainer.
- Open source: ATProto Clojure SDK March 2025 - now
During my break, I worked on an ATProto SDK for Clojure(Script). The AT Protocol is an open, decentralized network for building social applications.
- Basic Program of Liberal Education at the University of Chicago 2023-2027
For 4 years, a group of 10 to 20 people discuss 3 hours every week about their reading and understanding of some of the great books.
- Backend/API Engineer at Stripe 2022-2025
Most of my work was focused on improving the interoperability of our Payments APIs internally and externally by shipping new services and user-facing APIs. I also reviewed dozens of changes to other Stripe products as part of the company-wide API Review team.
Whatever work there is should have as much meaning as possible. Wherever possible, workmen should be artists; their work should be the application of knowledge or science and known and enjoyed by them as such. They should, if possible, know what they are doing, why what they are doing has the results it has, why they are doing it, and what constitutes the goodness of the things produced. They should understand what happens to what they produce, why it happens in that way, and how to improve what happens. They should understand their relations to others cooperating in a given process, the relation of that process to other processes, the pattern of them all as constituting the economy of the nation, and the bearing of the economy on the social, moral, and political life of the nation and the world. Work would be humanized if understanding of all these kinds were in it and around it.