Sean Floyd
@seanlf
Seasoned Backend Engineer focused on optimizing infrastructure and performance.
What I'm looking for
As a seasoned Backend Engineer, I specialize in scaling Ruby applications and optimizing developer workflows. My experience includes leading platform engineering initiatives at Hivebrite, where I successfully reduced annual infrastructure costs by 8% and improved system performance significantly. With a proven track record of driving impactful process improvements in multi-tenant platforms, I am always eager to tackle new technical challenges.
My technical leadership has been instrumental in architecting API-first transitions and developing a standardized Docker environment, which has greatly improved developer productivity and onboarding processes. I have a strong background in machine learning and data processing optimization, demonstrated through my research assistant role at the University of Ottawa, where I developed a novel streaming data algorithm that achieved a remarkable 160x performance gain.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Senior softare engineer
FastRuby
Jan 2025 - Present (5 months)
Providing Rails application modernization expertise for enterprise clients:
- Implementing scalable monolith modularization approach using Packwerk and domain-driven design for large enterprise codebases
- Created Rails upgrade roadmap with PHI-sensitive system
- Working to establish clear system boundaries and architecture patterns to enhance team autonomy and reduce knowledge silos
Senior Software Engineer
Hivebrite
Jul 2020 - Dec 2023 (3 years 5 months)
Led critical engineering initiatives from development to production at a fast-growing SaaS platform (€1.5M infrastructure spend, 1M+ users, 600+ communities):
- Reduced large-scale data export time by 98% for communities with 1M+ users
- Cut infrastructure costs €160k annually through targeted performance optimization
- Led platform-wide Ruby 3 and Rails 7 migration
- Reduced CI build times by 50%
Focused on machine learning and data processing optimization, developing a novel streaming data algorithm that achieved a 160x performance gain. Led undergraduate data science instruction covering the full analytics lifecycle.
Early Career Engineer
Various
May 2014 - Aug 2016 (2 years 3 months)
Held progressively responsible roles in various organizations, improving system response times and resolving product backlogs. Demonstrated technical growth through contributions to critical systems and maintenance.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
University of Ottawa
Master of Science, Computer Science
2017 - 2019
Grade: Summa Cum Laude (9.8/10)
Activities and societies: $35k in scholarships
Completed a Master of Science in Computer Science with a focus on machine learning and distributed systems. Achieved a performance gain of 160x over state-of-the-art methods through novel streaming data algorithms and led undergraduate data science instruction.
University of Ottawa
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
2012 - 2016
Grade: Magna Cum Laude (8.5/10)
Activities and societies: Co-op Program with 4 technical internships
Earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science through a co-op program that included four technical internships, focusing on foundational computer science principles and practical applications.
Tech stack
Software and tools used professionally
Postman
Sidekiq
Selenium
Google Cloud Platform
DigitalOcean
GitHub
Kubernetes
CircleCI
Travis CI
GitHub Actions
PostgreSQL
Sentry
Rollbar
LaunchDarkly
Ruby on Rails
Git Flow
Redis
Jira
JavaScript
Python
HTML5
CSS 3
C#
Ruby
Rails API
PagerDuty
Datadog
Heroku
gRPC
Elasticsearch
GitHub Pages
TypeScript
RSpec
Cucumber
GitHub CLI
Git
NGINX
SQL
Buildkite
Availability
Location
Authorized to work in
Website
seanfloyd.devSalary expectations
Social media
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