Brian Henry
Verified Expert in Engineering
GitHub Actions Developer
Boulder, CO, United States
Toptal member since February 18, 2025
Brian is a skilled polyglot senior developer with over 15 years of experience delivering web and enterprise software solutions. His expertise includes Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Java, Spring, JavaScript frameworks, various RDBMS and NoSQL data sources, and multiple clouds. He excels at detailed requirements analysis, resilient design, efficient coding, and reliable DevOps toolmaking. Brian is adept at constructing greenfield applications or integrating with existing 3rd-party systems.
Portfolio
Experience
- JavaScript - 15 years
- Java - 12 years
- PostgreSQL - 12 years
- Ruby on Rails (RoR) - 12 years
- Ruby - 11 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 10 years
- Docker - 9 years
- GitHub Actions - 5 years
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), JetBrains IDE, MacOS, RubyMine, IntelliJ IDEA, Bash, Vi
The most amazing...
...thrill I've had from a product I created was watching people engage with my voting UI on a stadium Jumbotron screen during a Chicago Blackhawks game.
Work Experience
Senior Ruby on Rails Developer
IdeaCrew
- Built out new features and debugged existing issues in a complex microservices-based brownfield environment, enabling access to healthcare in several state-based marketplaces.
- Migrated Amazon EC2, Capistrano, and Unicorn-deployed Rails services to an Amazon ECR, GitHub Actions, Docker, and Puma deployment architecture, improving performance and scalability and enabling fast, repeatable deployments.
- Contributed to developer tools and organizational processes, such as building local Docker-based run environments and designing unified release/versioning processes across codebases.
Senior Software Consultant
Coldcart
- Built out the back-end-focused Shopify order ingestion and fulfillment-tracking integration to enable the primary revenue stream for the company.
- Migrated a fleet of PostgreSQL databases from Amazon Relational Database Service to Azure SQL Databases for substantial cost savings.
- Enhanced the core fulfillment engine's front end and back end to provide novel reporting capabilities for partners.
Lead Software Engineering Consultant
Jungle Disk
- Architected a deployment platform shift within the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) ecosystem, optimizing reliability, cost, and capacity.
- Designed and executed technologies across the full stack for a new Stripe-based billing capability.
- Collaborated closely with the product team to help define and realize product plans and features.
Senior Lead Software Developer
Earth Class Mail
- Owned varied API- and browser-based apps, including the external company marketing site, internal 3rd-party auth and integrations, the customer onboarding experiences, and an API gateway.
- Mentored and guided developers and non-technical personnel in Rails, guiding development, clarifying issues, and ensuring a common vision.
- Designed and coded back-end and front-end app components, administered infrastructure resources as a DevOps member, and proactively mastered other technologies and services to best assist across the organization.
Senior Software Engineer
Placester
- Wrangled numerous languages and deployment environments, mastering and supporting complex apps, concurrently.
- Engineered enterprise and web app features across stacks, working in concert with other departments to drive feature discovery.
- Tuned and deployed infrastructure resources, maximizing ROI and stability.
- Filled an expert role wherever the organization exhibited gaps and shared knowledge and guidance where it served teams.
Senior Software Engineer
Bounteous
- Shepherded a new Ruby on Rails (RoR) practice for the organization.
- Directed contractors, vetted code, and interfaced with clients to ensure day-to-day success.
- Troubleshooted, hardened, and developed user-facing features and internal batch and MQ-driven processes for a massive enterprise web app.
Experience
SafetyNet
https://safetynet.app/While on the project, I noticed unexpected back-end behavior and dug deep to find hidden reliability and scalability issues. I surveyed available GCP platform options and designed a detailed corrective re-platform plan, communicating it to the product team and tech leadership. I delivered code and deployment tooling to execute the plan and stabilize the app while transforming the app into separately scalable components, ensuring reliable performance.
Certifications
AWS Certified Developer – Associate
Amazon Web Services Training and Certification
Professional Cloud Developer
Google Cloud
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, REST APIs, Vue, React, Java Message Service (JMS), Backbone.js, Stripe
Tools
RubyMine, IntelliJ IDEA, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ
Languages
Ruby, JavaScript, Java, SQL, Bash, C#, TypeScript, PHP
Frameworks
Ruby on Rails 5, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby on Rails 6, AngularJS, Express.js, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Tailwind CSS, Next.js
Paradigms
Agile Software Development
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), MacOS, Docker, Heroku, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), JEE, Cloud Run, Google App Engine
Storage
Redis, NoSQL, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, MySQL
Other
Code Deployment, Codebase Development, JetBrains IDE, GitHub Actions, Web App Deployment, Vi, Shell Scripting, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Build
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