thebleucheese
Principal Engineer
contact@thebleucheese.com · linkedin.com/in/galen-fisher · github.com/thebleucheese
Profile
Principal engineer with 20+ years building software currently working in security and enterprise systems end to end. I’ve done appsec work, secure code audits, vulnerability remediation, expert testimony, product architecture, frontend design, and engineering management. I’m comfortable taking something from 0 to 1, modernizing old systems without breaking things, and solving hard problems in code. Today I own the architecture and roadmap of an enterprise SaaS security platform that drives delivery of a business service, and I sit on the company technology steering committee.
Experience
Principal Engineer (SDE IV)Sep 2017 - Present
Current Company - Remote
- Own the architecture, systems design, and technical roadmap of the company's flagship enterprise application, directly managing a team of 6 engineers, and previously the Cloud DevOps team (2-3) that deploys and operates it.
- Serve on the company technology steering committee, setting technology direction and standards across the organization.
- Took the product to market as a paid Enterprise SaaS offering, now many hosted instances of a cybersecurity product, plus a free community edition and internal consulting deployments; it improves the company's other offerings and delivers a service built around it.
- Led the product direction and UI/UX design for a major look-and-feel revamp, and designed and built custom data visualizations that make complex reporting easier to read and use.
- Led multiple brownfield modernizations (framework modernization, AngularJS to Vue, and a document store to PostgreSQL migration) and introduced database migration systems for upgrade continuity while mentoring the development team.
- Designed and standardized a GraphQL layer around stakeholder reporting requirements, making client-driven data retrieval more powerful.
Senior Principal Software ArchitectApr 2011 - Sep 2017
Previous Company - Remote
Promoted from Application Developer II to Senior Principal Software Architect over six years.
- Headed a 4-person team of senior engineers on the core framework, owning performance, security, critical systems, i18n, and regional compliance for an HR talent-management platform (applicant tracking and performance management) used by hundreds of clients worldwide, with 24-hour distributed development coverage.
- Carried technical leadership through Company's acquisition by Larger Acquiring Firm; the platform remains in production use post-acquisition.
- Drove the application's migration to AWS hosting: guided performance testing, re-architected two major subsystems, cut complex form non-cached page loads from roughly 60 seconds to under 2 seconds (about 30 times faster), and rebuilt the translation system for Aurora DB cluster compatibility.
- Selected and implemented Redis-based session storage for speed and reliability; the application held consistently excellent Apdex scores in New Relic.
- Standardized performance and quality practices: built reusable engineering templates including Gatling load-test suites, and partnered with senior QA to pin down the platform's critical validation points.
- Acted as security SME: implemented application-wide CSRF protection and led remediation of vulnerabilities found by external consultancies and internal testing teams.
- Built critical platform components including a dynamic forms architecture, standardized API fetch behavior, a command system for bundling actions into queueable units, diversity management, and automated user-data deletion for EU right to be forgotten (GDPR) compliance.
Cybersecurity ConsultantNov 2010 - Apr 2011
Past Company - In-Office
- Used Software Development experience and security knowledge to perform web application security assessments for Fortune 500 clients.
- Conducted secure code audits for well-known mobile and internet applications.
- Provided expert cybersecurity testimony in legal proceedings.
Skills
Rust, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, PHP, Vue, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, AWS (Aurora), Tailwind. Systems design, application security, detection-as-code, legacy modernization, performance engineering, data visualization, frontend/UX design, and engineering leadership.
Education
B.S. Information Systems
Specializations: Information Search and Web Application Development