Open to opportunities

Stephen McDonald

@stephenmcdonald

Message

Senior software engineer building scalable backend and full-stack systems with microservices and real-time data.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I want to build and modernize reliable microservices and real-time systems in a high-trust engineering team—owning architecture, improving performance, and mentoring others to deliver measurable customer impact.

I’m a Senior Software Engineer with 13+ years of experience building scalable backend and full-stack systems across automotive, fintech, gaming, and media.

I’ve led architecture and modernization efforts, migrating legacy components to C#/.NET microservices and React-based modules to improve scalability, reduce latency, and strengthen long-term maintainability.

At Google, I focused on measurable outcomes: cutting time-to-insight by 40% with real-time reporting, reducing payment failures and manual remediation by 50% using asynchronous workflows, and lowering manual intervention by 70% through automated analytics backfills and operational jobs.

I also prioritize delivery quality—improving deployment safety with Docker and Kubernetes, strengthening CI/CD, and mentoring engineers through code reviews and planning—while applying robust testing, observability, and performance tuning to keep systems reliable under load.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Software Engineer (L7)

Current

Google

May 2020 - Present (5 years 11 months)

Modernized internal dashboards and platform services by migrating legacy Laravel components to C#/.NET microservices and React, improving scalability and reducing latency during peak traffic. Reduced time-to-insight by 40%, payment failures by 50%, and manual intervention by 70% via real-time reporting and asynchronous/event-driven workflows.

C .NET Core ASP.NET Core React Microservices RabbitMQ Docker Kubernetes

Software Engineer (L6)

Google

Oct 2014 - Apr 2020 (5 years 6 months)

Improved payment management reliability and performance by building backend capabilities with Java, Spring Boot, and SQL and modernizing monolith components into microservices-oriented services. Reduced latency in high-volume flows with caching and JVM tuning, strengthened CI/CD for more consistent releases, and reduced production issues with testing and deployment validation.

Java Spring Boot SQL GraphQL Microservices Caching CI CD

Agile Engineer

Pivotal Labs

Oct 2013 - Sep 2014 (11 months)

Designed and developed backend services using Django and Node.js and built React-based dashboards for a HIPAA-compliant telehealth video platform, increasing patient engagement by 20%. Implemented secure authentication and RBAC, reducing security incidents by 40%, and improved CI/CD to cut release cycle times by 15%.

Python Django Node React RESTful APIs Authentication RBAC Azure DevOps Jenkins CI CD

Agile Engineer

Xtreme Labs

Sep 2013 - Oct 2013 (1 month)

Contributed to a real-time video chat platform supporting millions of concurrent users using React, React Native, WebSockets, and WebRTC. Improved backend REST APIs and optimized SQL queries and indexing to increase throughput and stabilize real-time messaging while strengthening CI/CD and containerization for smoother updates.

React React Native WebSockets WebRTC REST APIs SQL Optimization CI CD Containerization Real Time Systems

Software Developer

IBM Canada Ltd.

May 2011 - Aug 2012 (1 year 3 months)

Migrated Laravel services to Go microservices for internal dashboards and operational platforms, significantly improving scalability and reducing latency during peak traffic. Built event-driven payment workflows with RabbitMQ (reducing payment failures and manual remediation by 50%) and automated analytics backfills and operational jobs (reducing manual intervention by 70%).

Go Microservices Laravel RabbitMQ Docker Kubernetes Event Driven Architecture Automated Backfills