Summary/Highlights
- Currently a senior backend engineer
- Technical career ladder (ie, would move to staff engineer but not to management)
- Experience in 5-person startup through large multinational corporation
- Long experience with Python
- I have code in both the Linux kernel (just a smidge) and the Elixir standard library
- Comfortable with public speaking in both English and Spanish
- Will not work on “defense” or gambling
Experience
Work
NextRoll
Senior Backend Engineer November 2021 – November 2024
- Organized effort to reduce team’s AWS costs (from ~1400 EC2 instances to ~700)
- Reduced system start times and overhead by using Elixir to preprocess data into Erlang binary format
- Migrated legacy code base across major versions, including Python 2 to Python 3, Flask 2.0, and SQLAlchemy 2.0
- Scale: maintained a service answering more than 1.2 million requests per second with a p90 response time of 14 milliseconds
Tech: Erlang, Python, Elixir, Flask, SQLAlchemy, Terraform, Docker
Axios
Senior Backend Engineer July 2019 – November 2021
- Optimized API for 7x maximum users and 200x speed ahead of 2020 election
- Owned mobile app’s backend service
- Integrated mobile and site backend services to reduce overall system complexity
- Co-designed backend API for media library
- Extended frontend for media library
- Ensured completeness of Spanish translations in mobile app interface
Tech: Elixir, Phoenix, Absinthe, Python, Django, Flask, Javascript, React, OpenAPI, LaunchDarkly, Honeycomb, OpenCensus, GraphQL, Protobuf, Docker
The Washington Post’s Arc Publishing
Senior Software Engineer February 2017 – July 2019
- Led trainings on unit testing and writing testable code
- Advised on implementing agile processes
- Developed progressive web application (PWA) for Infobae (the most popular news site in Argentina), which was highlighted at Google I/O
- Overrode Bootstrap column framework with CSS grid (on compatible browsers) to ensure more consistent appearance
- Added automated linting to codebase to improve code quality
Tech: Javascript, React, Python, PWA
Full Measure Education
Senior Software Engineer February 2016 – January 2017
- Ensured accessibility (508 compliance) on software for government-funded schools
- Extended, tested, and validated interfaces with proprietary systems
- Maintained 100% code coverage
Tech: Javascript, AngularJS, Angular Material, Ionic, Ruby on Rails, RSpec, Karma
Trove (acquired by Social Code)
Software Development Engineer August 2015 – January 2016
Tech: Python, Javascript, UnderscoreJS, BackboneJS
Sourcefire (acquired by Cisco)
Software Engineer II June 2012 – July 2015
Software Engineer I January 2011 – June 2012
- Maintained framework for packaging product and OS upgrades
- Maintained backup/restore and troubleshooting tools for our product
- Integrated product with OEM hardware systems
- Enhanced system integrity checker
- Wrote a new MIB and the corresponding SNMP subagent
Tech: Perl, Bash/Shell, Python, C, Makeself, Linux
Popvox
Contractor March 2012 – October 2013
- Developed new features and APIs in Django application, including database schema design
- Created embeddable widgets and JSON APIs
- Maintained scripts to fetch data from the Library of Congress and generate reports
- Overhauled deployment system to improve site reliability and redundancy
- Assisted in data migration from MySQL to PostgreSQL
- Performed all necessary server maintenance on both Ubuntu and Amazon Web Services servers
Tech: Python, Django, Javascript, JQuery, MySQL, Postgres, Perl, LaTeX, AWS
Blue Storm Technology
System Analyst/Programmer (Contract) April 2010 – December 2010
- Performed security certification & accreditation
- Extracted binaries from Ubuntu system images and repackaged for Red Hat
- Developed firewall capabilities
Tech: C#
Sine Nomine Associates
Test Engineer March 2009 – April 2010
- Tested AFS on a variety of standard Unix systems
- Co-designed a new network-based filesystem
Tech: SuSE Linux, AIX, HP-UX
Applied Security, Inc
Systems Engineer Intern May 2009 – August 2009
- Automated system installation on Red Hat servers
- Created and maintained RPM packages
Tech: Bash, Kickstart, RHEL
Washington Post Newsweek Interactive
Web Developer & Research Assistant Intern August 2007 – December 2007
- Increased efficiency of adding new blogs by customizing Movable Type to support multiple templates
- Scraped government websites to CSV for database input
- Found SQL injection vulnerability in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign site
Tech: Python, Perl, CSS, Javascript, JQuery
Open Source
Growstuff
Contributor 2014
- Added photo functionality to several components
- Figured out how to store harvest info to be comparable across units
Maintainer 2015
- Reviewed PRs
- Improved unit test coverage
Ubuntu
Contributor 2007 – 2009
- Reviewed patches and packaged results
Developer 2009 – 2012
- Mentored developers-in-training
- Maintained packages in the Universe component
- Improved accessibility of OS installer
Developer Membership Board 2012
- Weighed-in on who should have commit access
Other
I have patches in the following:
- Erlang: modernized TypEr codebase 2022
- Rebar TypEr: collaborated on plugin to connect TypEr to Erlang build tool Rebar3 2022
- Elixir: added replace_lazy/3 function to Maps and Keyword modules in standard library 2021
- Spree: extension updates to work with API updates (Ruby on Rails) 2014
- Gally: created sign language tutor desktop application (Python, Qt, KDElibs) 2009
- Linux kernel: added quirk to fix audio issue with suspend/resume (C) 2009
- GNOME Terminator: fixed accessibility bug (Python, PyGTK)
- GSynaptics: added ability to configure touchpad speed and acceleration (C, GTK+) 2007
Education & Certifications
The George Washington University 2006 – 2010
BS Computer Science
Instituto Cervantes 2023
Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera (DELE)
Level B2, does not expire