Brandon McKay

Team Lead

Gi Inc

Dec 2025 - Current (8 months)

Short term contract involving React/NextJS and AI

Senior Software Engineer

Instacart

May 2025 - Nov 2025 (7 months)

Architectural Leadership: Led the decomposition of a core domain from the monolithic platform, completing the vertical slice migration using internal Rails Engines. The process culminated in the final removal of all legacy code and feature flags, followed by drafting a successful architectural cleanup announcement to the wider team. Advanced Deployment & Safety: Employed a zero-downtime deployment strategy utilizing shadow mode feature flags for validating new flows. Crucially, implemented deprecation metrics on legacy code paths (guarded by the same flag) to guarantee zero residual traffic before final service retirement. Internal Tooling & Velocity: Created custom internal Cursor commands (CLI tooling) for the team to standardize the sa

Senior FullStack Engineer

Workleap

Oct 2024 - May 2025 (8 months)

Led the full-lifecycle technical integration and modernization of two acquired Ruby on Rails companies (Didacte & Pingboard) into the Workleap ecosystem. Architected a resilient data synchronization solution based on the proven "Didacte model," implementing a suite of Ruby services to consume and process Azure Event Grid events. This solution successfully delivered the customer data sync ahead of schedule, establishing the Workleap APIs as the single source of truth. Acted as a Subject Matter Expert (SME), collaborating with the Pingboard team to adapt the battle-tested migration strategy and developing a hybrid data handling approach. Drove performance and stability improvements by diagnosing and resolving issues in Sidekiq jobs, imple

Senior Software Engineer

Workleap

Dec 2023 - Oct 2024 (11 months)

Senior Software Engineer

Lazer Technologies

May 2021 - Oct 2023 (2 years 6 months)

Consulting Subject Matter Expert for Rapid Scaling: Drove client success across multiple startup projects (2.5 years), specializing in building and bootstrapping greenfield platforms into production-ready beta phases. Massive Integration Delivery (Census): Developed 50-60 robust API integrations for major B2B marketing services, directly enabling the team to achieve its goal of 150 total integrations. Designed sophisticated data migration strategies, including specialized code for request batching, polling, and rate-limiting to ensure reliable data flow from Snowflake/data warehouses. Improved developer efficiency by building internal tooling to streamline API client layer creation and simplify testing specs. Mobile Platform Re-write Le

Senior Full Stack Developer

CareGuide

Sep 2020 - Apr 2021 (8 months)

Led large-scale code quality initiatives aimed at stabilizing and modernizing a complex legacy Ruby on Rails codebase. - Improved architectural flexibility by rigorously refactoring core logic into more composable classes and services. - Boosted testing reliability by creating comprehensive and flexible specs around critical functionality. Enhanced application performance and scalability through optimizations across both the Ruby on Rails backend (Sidekiq) and the modern frontend stack. Contributed to front-end development, focusing on accessibility and SEO improvements by implementing new HTML5 standards (e.g., address tags). Developed new features utilizing a modern GraphQL API and contemporary front-end libraries including ReactJS,

Lead Software Developer

Sign In Enterprise

Feb 2019 - Sep 2020 (1 year 8 months)

Architectural Leadership: Led the strategic development of a new enterprise REST API for the mobile team, transforming the internal API architecture to a secure and maintainable Ruby on Rails platform. API Quality and Automation: Implemented a robust API governance system by defining standards via OpenAPI Specification, and enforcing code integrity with contract testing and custom linting. Enhanced Continuous Integration (CI) through the Danger gem, adding automated checks for common errors and streamlined Pull Request reviews. Security & Compliance: Actively participated in mandatory training for SOC 2 compliance and OWASP security best practices, ensuring all API design and implementation adhered to strict security guidelines. Team Le

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Software Developer

Packcom

Sep 2018 - Feb 2019 (6 months)

Integrated Complex Web3/Gaming Logic: Developed backend services in Elixir/Phoenix to power a React application centered on loot crate gaming for real-world goods. Cryptographic API Implementation: Engineered new REST API endpoints that allowed customers to validate game results directly through a cryptographic proof. Full-Stack Feature Development: Developed key customer features, including a custom crate designer and branded collections, managed by a PostgreSQL database. Enhanced User Experience (UX): Designed and implemented detailed CSS animations for the roulette spin and result sequences, ensuring engaging user feedback (e.g., confetti for wins, solace text for losses). Automated Quality Checks (DevOps): Integrated GitHub Actions

Software Developer

Foodee

May 2016 - Aug 2018 (2 years 4 months)

Designed and built a complex, enterprise-focused meal calendar application on a full-stack Ruby on Rails backend servicing EmberJS and React frontends. Developed sophisticated invoicing and ordering logic that allowed administrators to manage employee meal ordering, enforce budget limits, provide base allowances, and track orders in real-time. Engineered real-time data flow by maintaining services that utilized Sidekiq unique jobs for meal processing, performing final calculations, and updating user totals via a pub/sub messaging system and REST API. Improved platform discoverability and performance by integrating and tuning Searchkick with Elasticsearch to enhance restaurant search functionality. Drove front-end quality and efficiency

Software Developer

Glacier Media Inc

Dec 2013 - May 2016 (2 years 6 months)

Full-Stack Development on a High-Traffic Portal: Served as a Full-Stack Ruby on Rails and JavaScript developer for one of Canada's leading real estate search platforms (REW.ca). Performance Engineering: Optimized core search functionality by working with and tuning SOLR search indexes, ensuring rapid and accurate property searches for millions of users. Architecture & Tooling Selection: Successfully advocated for and helped vet EmberJS as the core front-end framework for its architectural alignment with Rails' "convention over configuration" philosophy. Developed a dedicated mobile-first EmberJS application. User Experience & Integrations: Implemented rich geospatial features, including a Google Maps integration with custom placemarkers

Web Development Co-ordinator

Justice Education Society

Feb 2013 - Aug 2013 (7 months)

Lead developer running the installation, maintenance, theming and creation of a number of CMS based sites as well as introduced better practices by leveraging Git and git flow.

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Art Director

Daywatch

Jan 2009 - Jan 2011 (2 years 1 month)

Created and prepared all ads for print; created design grid and template; updated branding; typeset all articles.

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Media Co-ordinator

The Way

Jan 2008 - May 2008 (5 months)

Developed and produced ongoing comedic short video segments to convey relevant news to the community. Created all print media: posters, news ads, tickets, rsvp cards.

Film Lighting Technician

IATSE Local

Nov 2007 - Nov 2011 (4 years 1 month)

Placement and proper adjustment of lighting sources for correct film exposure in fast-paced, high-stress situations. Distribution and take down of electrical power lines for film locations.

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Graphic Designer & Developer

Better Business Presentations

Oct 2007 - Jan 2008 (4 months)

Website UI, Website design and implementation, Flash Actionscript 2.0 programming, Email Marketing

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Co-Founder

Lydias House Creative Group

Jul 2005 - Sep 2009 (4 years 3 months)

Community & Creative Leadership: Co-founded and actively managed an arts collective focused on building the creative community. Project Management & Execution: Organized and executed large-scale public and themed indoor events (e.g., "Art Goes Boom," "Honeysuckle Rhythms"). Transferable Skills: Developed strong competencies in end-to-end event logistics, budget management, public relations, and conceptual design, which informs user-centered software development.

Founder

Wujibear Studio

Jan 2004 - Current (22 years 7 months)

Founder & Technical Innovator: Maintained a long-running consulting and creative venture, now leveraged as a platform for demonstrating deep Node.js and Ruby on Rails expertise. Stealth MVP (Decision-Making SaaS): Currently building an alpha MVP in Ruby on Rails designed to facilitate structured, async decision-making within teams. The platform incorporates AI summaries and recommendations, weighted requirements, and a Reddit-style voting/commenting system inspired by democratic organizational models. Flagship Open-Source Tool (hom-cli): Designed and developed hom-cli, a Node.js CLI built on OCLIF, dedicated to managing developer shell configurations and promoting documented development workflows. The tool is live as an NPM package. Cons

Founder | Lead Engineer | Architect

Wujibear Studio

Jan 2004 - Current (22 years 7 months)

Founder & Technical Innovator: Maintained a long-running consulting and creative venture, now leveraged as a platform for demonstrating deep expertise across the full stack (Ruby on Rails, Node.js, React). Modern DevOps & Edge Deployment: Architected a high-reliability production environment using Kamal (containerized deployment) to push updates to a self-hosted platform running on a dedicated ZimaBoard SSD—showcasing expertise in lean infrastructure and continuous delivery. SaaS Innovation (Decision-Making MVP): Built the platform on the modern Rails 8 stack (Hotwire, Stimulus), leveraging internal components like Solid Cache and Active Job/Queue for performance and background processing. The platform incorporates AI summaries, weighted

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Founder

FiveWise Productions

Jan 2000 - Jun 2004 (4 years 6 months)

Entrepreneurial Leadership & Full Business Oversight: Founded and managed an apparel company, overseeing the full production lifecycle from concept to consumer. Production & Quality Control: Designed humorous and unique graphic Tees, prepared art files for color separation and silkscreening, and vetted multiple manufacturers for pricing and material sourcing. Marketing & Partnerships: Secured key venues for live sales events and brokered a successful partnership with an influential dance group for promotional campaigns. Innovative Customer Engagement: Created branded promotional material (zine, poetry, model shoots) and developed custom stencil techniques to offer unique, value-add art applications for customers at the point of sale.

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