Searchlight Development was born out of a shared passion for creating innovative technology solutions. At the beginning of the year, we made the exciting decision to embark on a new journey, inspired by the potential we saw for transforming industries with cutting-edge AI. We left our previous roles with the desire to chart a new path where we could fully embrace our vision and build solutions that make a meaningful difference.

We believe in the transformative power of AI to redefine the way we solve problems and improve everyday life. Our goal is to create tools that not only disrupt the current market but also bring meaningful improvements to everyday life. We want to develop solutions that deeply integrate AI into their core, as opposed to merely adding a cosmetic layer. With Searchlight Development, we’re committed to shining a light on a new era of technology that empowers people and transforms industries for the better.

Who We Are

Craig Lebowitz headshot

Craig Lebowitz

Craig Lebowitz is a highly accomplished software architect with over 20 years of experience in the Software-as-a-Service industry. Joining a tiny startup with a strange name ("NGP"??) as employee number seven, he rose through the ranks to lead all technical architecture work. From NGP VAN and its two major fundraising/compliance product migrations to managing the integration, consolidation, and end-of-life management for seventeen different SaaS applications, Craig has seen what it takes to succeed (and in some cases fail) at all scales of the SaaS business. As just one example of his work, he oversaw reliability and performance as the company 100xed its payments business, maturing the technology to the point where it could process billions of dollars for Democrats and progressive nonprofits.

An alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics, Craig applies both his theoretical background and his practical experience to the building of simple, performant, and effective software applications. He is a strong advocate for AI innovation and cloud computing, consistently seeking to bring these transformative technologies into practical business solutions. His expertise extends to mentoring the next generation of software professionals and enhancing user experience and performance through data-driven insights.

Drew Miller headshot

Drew Miller

Drew Miller got his start in politics and technology working the Iowa Caucuses, scraping university records and later Facebook to build proprietary student voter files that were orders of magnitude more accurate than those available from the state. He took that experience to the Iowa Democratic Democratic party,\ where he worked in field organizing, IT, and data, and built the 2008 caucus reporting system on a novel new technology platform called "Amazon Web Services", which didn't crash (remarkable for the time!) and cost less than $100 to support during peak load.

After working for both the state party and the Obama campaign through the election cycle, Drew made his way to Boston to work for the company that built his favorite tool - a CRM for tracking voter contact efforts at scale, called Voter Activation Network. He started as a software engineer but quickly realized he could make a bigger impact in management. Through various roles (culiminating in SVP Engineering) he oversaw teams ranging from 3 people to over 200, and led a high morale, high productivity, low turnover department through 10 years of organic growth and another 5 of privaty equity investment and highly-acquisitive growth.

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