Application architecture, development, and research
Hyperfine builds mobile web applications and services, and provides technical research and strategic guidance. Founded in 1996, it serves as the creative home for Rob Bearman.
A sampling of Hyperfine’s technical work from the past and present include:
- Current work in progress: Atlasphere, a progressive web application and back end platform for map-based social network content. Visit the about page for more background on the application.
- MongoDB/SQL Server driven back end services powering web front end applications.
- Native Android applications, including Remote for iTunes, which was a best of breed Android remote control for iTunes.
- Consulting and software development for Microsoft, Qualcomm, and other tech companies.
- Location based cloud services for prototype mobile devices in 2000/2001, including custom map rendering software using Census Tiger date and real-time location sharing.
Rob is the founder and CEO of Hyperfine. Rob is an experienced technical and strategic leader who brings a nuanced and wise understanding of markets and technologies, with an eye toward high level systems integration. He has led software development teams, mentored and empowered engineers, and participated in a vast number of technology areas over the course of his thirty-plus-year career.
Rob was a technical lead in the Windows group at Microsoft, helping to define new user interfaces such as the taskbar and desktop for Windows NT and Windows 95. He led the development team designing the prototype for Microsoft's Windows Media Center Edition, integrating for the first time music, movies, games, and digital television on a single system. He was also an expert in the design and implementation of Microsoft's Component Object Model.
As the founder of Hyperfine, Rob was a trusted and valued consultant partner for companies including Qualcomm and Microsoft. He developed a mobile location-based platform incorporating realtime maps and GPS tracking years before the iPhone made its appearance.
Rob built commercial mobile applications for Android and iOS devices under the Hyperfine brand. He has designed phone-based voice interfaces using VoiceXML and SQL Server data stores. He is an expert in web technologies, including web components, node.js, and MongoDB-driven backend systems. He is currently focused on building a map-based platform for the publishing and consumption of social media content.
Rob holds a Bachelor's degree in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master's degree in Education from Stanford University.
From Rob’s peers and colleagues:
"Rob has this great perspective in an industry and a practice where things can change rapidly all the time. He has a critical eye and is able to determine what trends are worth following.
His impact is positive and can be very wide-reaching. He was able to identify some working arrangements that weren’t optimal and suggest ways we could improve and then illustrate those suggestions with stories from his experience in such a way that we could get people moving in a better direction.
He was an excellent mentor. He identified my strengths and gave me more responsibility in those areas which enabled me to have confidence about things that otherwise I might not have.
Years of technical experience across different organizations and different contexts give him a unique perspective in how software can be built and how products should be built. When you’re working on a technical problem he will focus on it deeply until he really understands the issue and has a good solution for it. Rob is an experienced developer, a compassionate leader and a curious thinker."
"Rob is an excellent engineer and technologist. In both verbal and written communication, he is eloquent and articulate, able to explain things in a relatable way even to non-technical audiences. He brings a nuanced and empirical understanding of the market and of technology to his views on what is needed and the right way to solve a problem.
Rob kept our team focused on building things that demonstrated progress both to our internal leadership and to external investors. I still employ lessons I’ve learned from him, even 20 years later.
His impact to the organizations has been significant both in terms of strategy and in terms of maturity and professionalism. Rob is a careful listener. I’ve been in the same meetings he has and heard the same things, only to find that his was the more perceptive assessment of what we’d just heard.
When I work with Rob I get inspired."
"Rob knows how to inspire people to be better versions of themselves. He has a way of illuminating a direction and then inspiring his team to dig in and become the expert.
Rob is a really intelligent, smart guy who is genuinely excited about technology and excited about code and new things.
He has great empathy. Great emotional intelligence. A sense of humor. He is also a great communicator. He can explain technical ideas with an economy of words. These qualities made me really excited to work for him and to learn from him. I found myself working really hard but it didn’t really feel like work. It felt more like fun.
Rob has a good sense for where value is in the marketplace. He couples that with his ability to make shrewd, efficient decisions when it comes to technical products — he has a good sense for the value, both to humans but also to a company.
Rob is a superstar."
"Rob focuses on what needs to be done, understands the choices and trade-offs, and then once you’ve committed to a plan, drives that plan to success.
He’s great at mentoring. He makes sure that folks understood that they’ve been heard and that they’re valued, and that their growth is critical.
I would describe him as a competent, caring group leader with focus on excellent execution and on-time delivery and transparency in what and how he delivers. He brings honesty and transparency and good managership to an organization."
"Rob is thoughtful, careful, pleasant, curious and humble.
Rob is not easily distracted by fads and that makes him a strong technologist. He can appreciate the value of something, and he is very quick to appreciate why something would be important. He always is very careful to consider all the ramifications of something before going forward. That’s made him quite helpful as an engineering partner.
He’s an incredibly reliable person and very deliberate. When I work with Rob, I get a stress-free working relationship. He’s not going to have to go back and re-do something, so you feel like you’re making steady progress towards a goal.
Rob allows me to be more effective."
"You can count on Rob. I trust his technical judgment and that he can implement it the way that he says with feedback from the team. He’s always making sure that things are working properly and that he can deliver on time.
When you work with Rob you get clarity of what he wants to deliver and what he wants to build and how he wants to build it."
"Rob mentored me at my first job at RelationalAI and his inputs have enriched my work to a great extent. Apart from technical skills that I learnt from him regarding development and coding, he also made sure to guide me through the process of collaborating, team building and work ethics.
We worked to build a designer-developer workflow for our company and he was eager to guide me through the system and encouraged me to participate and learn. He also showed great interest in my work and made it a point to understand and discuss my ideas. I am grateful to get the experience of working under his leadership where I felt supported and had the space to flourish as a designer. His passion to connect and help was evident throughout this project.
I would love to stay connected and keep learning from him even beyond my job requirements as I believe that his mentorship is a great asset for my future career."
