About Us

The Picnik team is headquartered in downtown Seattle. We love making great software for real people, eating the food at Pike Place Market, and taking pictures that bring to life great memories of times we've had with family and friends.

Interested in joining the team, partnering with us, or just want to tell us what you think about Picnik?

Looking for Press info? Visit press.picnik.com.

Jonathan Sposato / CEO

Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur. Prior to Picnik, Jonathan was the founder and CEO of Phatbits, which he sold to Google in 2005. This allowed for the deployment of Google Desktop Gadgets & Sidebar, which was awarded PC Magazine's "Best Gadgets Platform." Phatbits has since become a key component of Google's overall desktop applications strategy and continues to reach millions of users daily. Prior to Phatbits, Jonathan worked as a senior manager in Microsoft's consumer division. When he's not at work, Jonathan can be seen sitting at a bar he owns talking to complete strangers about Picnik and 'web-two-point-oh.'

Darrin Massena / Picnik Co-Founder, CTO

Darrin has been avidly developing software for the last 25 years. Prior to Picnik, Darrin was a co-founder of Spiffcode, and the co-author of ground breaking real-time strategy game Warfare Incorporated, which was named "Handheld Game of the Year" by Palm Computing in 2003. Darrin was a founding member of the Palm Open Source community and brought the first Windows development tools to the platform. He previously was a development manager at Microsoft, where he was a "Leonardo DaVinci Award" winner, and where he and Mike took turns managing each other. Darrin is also a collector... of dusty handhelds his wife refers to as "the PDA museum." Original Apple Newton? Check. Sharp Zaurus? Check. Extremely rare Sony Magic Link? Believe it.

Mike Harrington / Picnik Co-Founder, COO

Prior to Picnik, Mike co-founded Valve Software where he was the director of development for Half-Life, an industry phenomenon that sold more than 10 million copies and won more than 50 "Game of the Year" awards. PC Gamer magazine, the best selling PC games publication, has repeatedly named Half-Life "the best PC game of all time." Prior to Valve, Mike worked as a development manager for the Microsoft consumer division, Microsoft Windows NT User Interface team and the OS/2 graphics engine team. Mike loves getting into the outdoors, and recently bought a mountain bike that seems to be beating him up.

Peter Roman / The Designer

Peter was the only kid in the fourth grade with a business card. Self-made to match his website, Peter had already embraced the holistic method he continues to bring to his work. From his award-winning freelance work to his work as lead designer on a number of Real Networks properties and to his current vocation running brand, design and UI for Picnik, Peter has tirelessly worked towards achieving a gestalt experience across his projects. A dedicated neophile, he brings to his work an ability to embrace and normalize all the latest technologies that surround our everyday lives, facilitating a seamless adoption of those technologies by his audience. In his spare time, Peter enjoys mining the internets for new additions to his LOLcat collection, debating with himself why that pixel really should be moved 3 pixels to the left, and using the word "gestalt."

Brian Terry / Quixotic Softographer

Polyglot, international adventurer and internet developer extraordinaire, Brian comes to Picnik with more than 10 years of experience in building great websites. After earning his computer science degree at Stanford, he spent five years at Homestead.com, one year in Norway (fjords!), and five years at Expedia. At the advanced age of 10 years old, Brian won his first computer in a programming contest from Apple. Nowadays, outside of work, he enjoys taking pictures of (read: chasing after) his 2-year-old son, climbing mountains, and dodging traffic on his bicycle.

Justin Huff / Penguin Handler

Justin's diverse software engineering background includes earlier projects of sonar, home automation, and high performance databases. He has also been running and administering Linux systems for 8 years, and brings all that experience and more to his work at Picnik. Being a member of that rare breed, a native Seattleite, Justin doesn't even notice anymore a weather report of "cloud cover with a chance of rain."

Monica Harrington / Marketing Guru

Monica recently joined the Picnik team to focus on marketing and business development. Prior to Picnik, Monica was a senior policy officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, managing foundation-wide communications. She previously worked with Mike at Valve, where she oversaw marketing and business development for Valve's smash hit Half-Life. Prior to Valve, Monica spent 11 years at Microsoft, including a three-year stint managing applications PR during the critical time period when Microsoft overtook Lotus, Borland, and WordPerfect to become the leading applications company. She later joined the consumer division where she won the Market Maker Award for having the biggest impact on the bottom line. Her assistants are Emma and Franklin, Springer Spaniels with only marginal skills.

Steve Leroux / Software Engineer, Importer of Fine Teas

Representing our Northern Neighbors and bringing a diverse background to Picnik, Steve has experience in developing multimedia frameworks (Microsoft), mobile messaging applications (Vazu), and next-generation web services (Feedwhip). Steve received his BS from the University of British Columbia where he assisted research into issues of gender and educational software. Steve enjoys soccer, gardening, and encouraging his two-year-old daughter to stomp on things. Steve's favorite tea is a second-flush SFTGFOP organic darjeeling from the Makaibari estate.

Charlie Whiton / Test Manager, Community Relations Guy

Picnik's newest addition, Charlie worked for Microsoft and then Expedia for 14 years in some capacity as a Tester or Test Management, especially enjoying the deep psychologically calming effects of setting up great Test practices. His enthusiasm for photography dates back to his high school days messing around with an entry-level 35 mm camera and was cemented when, drawing on his newfound darkroom abilities and a great deal of luck, he won a local photo competition. Soon he was blowing his cash on motor-drives and other high-powered gear just like the professional d00dz, or at least as far as his allowance would go. These days, Charlie likes trudging out into the backcountry somewhere and (while perhaps developing and utilizing best practices) trying to find his way back.