Jason Byrne

About Me

Who am I?

My name is Jason Byrne. I am a software executive with over 20 years of industry experience. I live in the Orlando, Florida metro area with my wife (college sweethearts!), daughter, and our boston terrier. I am active in the local community, being well-known as a writer and Vice President of the Longwood Historic Society. I organize a popular annual 5K race and other community events. I'm also a regular speaker at local history events and in Orlando Devs software developer meet-ups.

I've always been an entrepreneur. Even in high school (in the late 1990s), I had a web design business and was a member of the local Chamber of Commerce. But it really kickstarted with MileSplit, my bootstrapped labor-of-love that was founded in my college dorm room. Through that experience, I learned that success is rooted in caring deeply about your community. If you listen to your customers well enough, you will know precisely what will thrill them -- even if they don't know how to articulate it!

After running MileSplit for over a decade, we sold the company to FloSports. What a great adventure! I joined Flo in their early stages and helped to grow the company from fledgling potential to streaming powerhouse. Through multiple rounds of funding, we grew from a scrappy prod/eng team of three to over sixty strong, from 30 to over 300 employees overall. I learned more there than I can ever explain and made friends for life.

Having spent eight years at Flo, it was time for a new challenge. So, given the opportunity to lead the engineering organization at connected-fitness startup Echelon Fitness, I jumped at the chance. It was a critical time for the company, following COVID-fueled hypergrowth and a $65M fundraise from Goldman Sachs. We have made tremendous strides to modernize the technolgy stack in a way that is scalable, introducing proper product roadmaps and workflows, and formalizing career development opportunities for our team. At Echelon, I lead the software Engineering, DevOps Infrastructure, Quality Assurance, and Data/Business Intelligence teams.

Outside of that, I love watching my little girl grow up (way too fast). Our family spends weekends at zoos, the farmers market, girl scout events, or other field trips. On our lazy weekends, I love playing Fortnite with my daughter, niece, and nephew. My wife and I met way back in 1999 at Wesley Fellowship, while attending Florida Southern College. She is a former high school guidance counselor turned awesome stay-at-home super-mom. She serves as Girl Scout troop leader, wins awards for her generous volunteer hours, has led various initiatives at church, and in general just takes care of us. Life is good!

Historian & Author

Community Organizations

Florida Youth Running Association
Founding member and board of directors for FLYRA, which promotes and donates to elementary and middle school running programs and hosts the state championship meets in track & field and cross country.
Longwood Historic Society
Vice President for this local organization that promotes love of local history and raises money for preservation of historic buildings, including three that we own in the Longwood Historic District. I build and maintain the web site, including membership portal.

Race Director

flrunners.com Invitational
As a college sophomore in 2000, grew this scrappy 400-athlete race into the largest cross country race in Florida with over 5000 participants. Served as meet director for 15 years and advisor for another five.
FLYRA Middle School Track & Field State Championship
Started this meet in 2002 because I saw no consolidation in middle school track & field in Florida. Grew it to become the universally recognized state championship. Served as meet director until 2014, when I passed the torch.
Longwood Monster Dash 5K
Longwood Historic Society needed a new fundraiser in 2018, so I proposed a community 5K at Halloween. It is now the organization's most important annual event.