Jack Burkhardt

I am a software developer and consultant who joined Atomic in 2026. Born and raised in Chicago, I obtained my bachelors and masters degrees from Northwestern University. My previous work has been featured at SIGGRAPH, the International Symposium for Electronic Art, and Northwestern’s Responsible AI student org.

Computers have always been an important part of my life. My childhood was spent creating mods and servers for games like Minecraft and Team Fortress 2, which I ran on old Linux machines. In the years since I’ve worked on flight simulators at NASA, educational video games, and tools for nonlinear narrative writers. The thread that binds these experiences together is a desire to write quality software that people love to use.

I believe software should be crafted with explicit consideration for the social and material contexts it exists in, and that the old IBM adage rings true: “A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE”. What makes Atomic great is that we take ownership of our work, our impact, and the relationships we keep with clients. Myself and my peers have no tolerance for shipping bad software; instead we push each other every day to learn and improve.

Outside of Atomic I spend time with friends, work on games, cook, and watch YouTube video essays on obscure topics.