Dawsin Blanchard, Developer in Cape Elizabeth, ME, United States
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Dawsin Blanchard

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Software Engineer and Developer

Cape Elizabeth, ME, United States

Toptal member since May 14, 2024

Bio

Dawsin is a highly skilled senior back-end engineer with over six years of industry experience focusing on the Rust programming language. An expert in Rust, he has a proven track record of adeptly developing new products from scratch and facilitating the integration of the language into existing technology stacks for various companies. Dawsin's expertise has been pivotal in enhancing system performance and maintainability.

Portfolio

Second Spectrum
Rust, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache Pulsar, RabbitMQ...
Yaraku
Rust, WebRTC, TypeScript, React, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS)...
Stillwater Software
Rust, TypeScript, React, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Experience

  • REST - 6 years
  • TypeScript - 6 years
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 6 years
  • Docker - 6 years
  • Rust - 5 years
  • gRPC - 4 years
  • Kubernetes - 3 years
  • WebRTC - 3 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Rust, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), TypeScript, Python, gRPC, REST, WebSockets, WebRTC

The most amazing...

...project I've headed was a media server built in Rust from the ground up to support video conferencing with real-time AI translations.

Work Experience

Rust Platform Engineer

2023 - PRESENT
Second Spectrum
  • Enhanced existing and greenfield microservices' maintainability, reliability, and observability as a Rust specialist, cutting on-call incidents by 38% in nine months.
  • Oversaw the development of multiple Rust-based projects and delivered all three on time.
  • Improved query times by up to 580% through the normalization of our serverless SQL database and refactoring of the data access layer.
  • Increased code coverage from 0% to over 60% by implementing unit tests and CI/CD pipelines across multiple projects.
  • Streamlined integrations for WebSockets, MQTT, AMQP, SSE, and other protocols by redesigning our live-ingestion platform's architecture.
  • Initiated a Rust guild and book club to disseminate knowledge across the organization's teams.
Technologies: Rust, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache Pulsar, RabbitMQ, MQTT

Senior Full-stack Engineer

2022 - 2023
Yaraku
  • Headed a technical team to deliver a successful beta for a video conferencing project with real-time WebRTC and AI translations, gaining continued interest from 82% of around 100 participating companies.
  • Built a custom media server and client from scratch, supporting thousands of concurrent participants.
  • Customized and deployed ML models for real-time processing, improving inference throughput by over 10,000%.
  • Trained multiple engineers to progress from beginners to production-level proficiency in Rust.
  • Wrote and deployed a custom Kubernetes controller to services needing publicly addressable sockets.
Technologies: Rust, WebRTC, TypeScript, React, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Grafana, Prometheus

Full-stack Engineer

2019 - 2021
Stillwater Software
  • Wrote custom software for the education sector, adhering to stringent data privacy and cybersecurity standards.
  • Sustained over 95% test coverage by operating cross-functionally on the front and back end in a test-driven development (TDD) environment.
  • Implemented back-end services in Rust, providing RESTful APIs for CRUD applications.
  • Maintained highly detailed documentation for both technical specifications and end-user guidance.
  • Created front ends in React and TypeScript with reusable components and hooks.
Technologies: Rust, TypeScript, React, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Machine Learning Research Assistant

2019 - 2020
Sekeh's Lab
  • Co-authored two research papers in the field of AI and machine learning.
  • Researched, investigated, and hypothesized new techniques for AI and machine learning solutions.
  • Implemented experiments on neural networks in PyTorch and optimized them to run in HPC super computers.
  • Performed comprehensive literature reviews of findings and advances in AI.
Technologies: Python, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, PyTorch

Junior Network Engineer

2017 - 2019
Networkmaine
  • Developed internal software and CLI tools for a wide range of network management tasks.
  • Identified opportunities for automation and implemented solutions, saving potentially hundreds of person-hours per week.
  • Assisted in remotely managing networking deployments and configurations via internal tools and SSH connection.
  • Collaborated with on-site engineers on network maintenance activities.
  • Designed, wrote, and debugged firewall rules for production deployments.
Technologies: Python, PHP, Linux, Networking, Firewalls

Experience

Euphony

https://github.com/dawsinb/euphony
Developed a lightweight audio playback and visualization library for JavaScript with zero dependencies and full TypeScript support.

Although designed with audio visualization, it can be used for simple audio playback. The library allows easy loading, playing, pausing, synchronization, visualization, and audio files.

Rust WebRTC Library (WIP)

Worked on a private WebRTC implementation written in Rust. This is part of a larger personal project. It is built upon WebRTC.rs, a Rust rewrite of the Go-based Pion WebRTC implementation. I wrapped parts of the library and completely rewrote others.

The reasoning behind the creation of the library is to provide a more ergonomic and idiomatic Rust interface when working with WebRTC.

Education

2017 - 2021

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

University of Maine - Orono, Maine, USA

Skills

Libraries/APIs

WebRTC, React, PyTorch

Tools

Grafana, RabbitMQ, MQTT

Languages

Rust, TypeScript, Python, PHP

Frameworks

gRPC

Paradigms

REST

Platforms

Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux

Other

Software Engineering, Prometheus, WebSockets, Apache Pulsar, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Networking, Firewalls

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