Looking for a job

Sean Arnold

@seanarnold

Staff Backend Engineer at GitLab who founded Switchboard for GitLab Dedicated, reducing customer onboarding from 80+ hours to under 2.

New Zealand

Message

At GitLab, I was the founding engineer of Switchboard for GitLab Dedicated, a management portal that automates enterprise tenant maintenance and lifecycle. It reduced customer onboarding from 80+ hours to under 2 and weekly maintenance from 2 hours to 30 minutes.

I grew the engineering team through hiring and onboarding, and partnered with Engineering Managers and Directors on recruitment. I also authored technical blueprints and documentation to plan features and secure cross-team buy-in.

At PaperKite, I led development of the backend API and web portal for a major client’s mobile app serving hundreds of thousands of users. I designed backend solutions integrating third-party systems and contributed to product direction.

At Abletech, I worked on Ruby on Rails solutions for FlyBuys, including user-facing web features. Across client projects, I developed backend, frontend, and DevOps skills.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Staff Backend Engineer

Current

GitLab

Aug 2019 - Present (7 years 2 months)

Founding engineer of the management portal for GitLab Dedicated, automating enterprise tenant maintenance and reducing customer onboarding from 80+ hours to under 2 hours. Grew the team from 1 to 6+ engineers and championed iterative development and AI-assisted workflows.

Ruby on Rails API Design Platform Architecture System Architecture Multi tenant SaaS AI assisted Development Agentic coding Workflow Orchestration Temporal AWS Terraform Kubernetes Engineering Leadership Technical Mentorship

Lead Software Engineer (Backend)

PaperKite

Oct 2015 - Aug 2019 (3 years 10 months)

Led development of the backend API and web portal for a major client's mobile app serving hundreds of thousands of users. Promoted to team lead, managing three engineers and overseeing hiring, while architecting scalable backend solutions with third-party integrations.

Backend Development API Architecture Ruby on Rails Go Team Leadership Hiring Third Party Integrations Scalable Systems

Technical Consultant

Abletech

Nov 2011 - Oct 2015 (3 years 11 months)

Transitioned from graduate developer to Technical Consultant, working on Ruby on Rails solutions for Fly Buys, New Zealand's largest loyalty platform. Built user-facing web features and developed backend, frontend, and DevOps skills across client projects.

Ruby on Rails Backend Development Frontend Development DevOps Web Development