As a Software Engineer at MySwimPro, Stephen Braverman designs and manages our backend infrastructure to help increase our engineering team’s efficiency and streamline MySwimPro members’ training experience.
He optimizes MySwimPro’s architecture, API and data storage, ensuring data from MySwimPro members are stored correctly and securely, and the MySwimPro app can access these data to enhance members’ swimming and training experience.
Steve helps inform strategic product decisions, using metrics from the backend to support overall business goals. Plus, he keeps an eye on security to make sure our members’ data stay safe.
“I love getting to work on a product I use multiple times a week.”
Steve has extensive experience in software architecture, data management, performance, scalability and security, with experience in a variety of industries including application security, healthcare, search engines, robotics and more.
Swimming Background
Steve grew up around the water – his family spent lots of time on sailboats, and he is an avid sailor to this day.
After a scary experience capsizing a small sailboat with his father at age 5, Steve finally learned to take his feet off the bottom of the pool, enrolling in swim programs each summer and eventually competing at the varsity level in high school. He specialized in the 100 butterfly and 500 freestyle.
In college, Steve took a break from swimming and instead sailed competitively for four years at Tufts University. He found his way back to the sport when his son started swimming for his high school team, and has been hitting the pool regularly ever since.
“Being in the water makes me feel free, natural, alive and at home.”
Steve routinely uses MySwimPro Training Plans, the Workout of the Day, and his own workouts to build his training routine. Steve created his own weekly Flyday Friday workouts and a monthly Test Set where he measures his performance. With a consistent progression and tracking his swims on his Garmin smartwatch, Steve is swimming faster and feeling better than ever!
At the moment, Steve swims primarily for fitness and mental health, and has no thoughts of competing. He looks forward to several low-impact workouts each week to improve his overall strength and cardio, to save his knees, and give him a chance to clear his head and prepare for the day ahead.
In addition to his swimming routine, Steve sails competitively. Being in good shape helps him sail confidently and crush his competition!
Steve finds a lot of similarities between swimming and sailing at the casual and elite levels: Training, competition and trusting your equipment. In sailing, the boat, lines and sails are the equipment. In swimming, your body is the equipment. In both sports, your equipment needs to be in top shape. Excelling in both sports is about optimizing power and lift and reducing drag by being streamlined through the water.
Fun Facts About Steve
- His favorite strokes are butterfly and freestyle.
- He has walked 10,000 steps per day, every day, since May 2, 2020
- He races sailboats year-round in his hometown near Boston. He has competed in several World and National Championships!
- He has been a volunteer judge, mentor and coach for grade school robotics teams since 2012.
Meet the rest of the MySwimPro team here.