CV - David Laban

David Laban - alsuren@gmail.com - github.com/alsuren - alsuren.github.io

Open Source Software Maintainer - 2009 - Present

• cargo-quickinstall
  • Installer for pre-compiled binary packages (~1k package installs/day).
  • Automated package builder (using Github Actions Cronjobs to build untrusted code).
  • Feedback loop (via stats server) to make sure we build the packages that people are asking for.
  • Package repository is also used by popular cargo-binstall project.
  • Many good first issue tickets addressed, and a few repeat contributors.
  • Repo: alsuren/cargo-quickinstall
  • Blog post: 2022/07/10/cargo-quickinstall
• mijia-homie
  • Set of Rust daemons for capturing temperature sensor data for plotting.
  • Bluetooth -> Raspberry Pi -> MQTT (homie) -> InfluxDB -> Grafana
  • Repo: alsuren/mijia-homie
  • Blog post/presentation: 2022/02/19/mijia-homie-presentation
• hoverkite
  • Embedded Rust project to fly a kite using a gamepad and a hoverboard.
  • Repo: hoverkite/hoverkite
• SixDoFone
  • Tool to use a mobile phone to control position and rotation (6DoF) of a robot arm.
  • Uses WebXR in the phone’s browser and Python + rerun.io on the laptop.
  • Repo: alsuren/sixdofone

Opvia - Senior Software Engineer - 11/2022 - 07/2024

Opvia is a no-code database (like Notion) focussed on process data management and training for regulated industries (e.g. food and drink and pharmaceutical manufacturing and research). I joined the company when we were in an 8 person office in a co-working space, and helped it grow to $1M ARR.

• Built the ability to instantly view any document/table as it was at any point in time, and revert to previous revisions. Massive win when selling into regulated industries.
• Re-architected table queries to make them responsive at 100k rows (fixed multi-minute latency on 5k row tables). Allowed a big pharmaceutical client to use us for their production workflows.
• Championed DevOps best practices (incident response procedure, runtime feature flags, shift left on testing, automatic nightly deploys, end-to-end distributed tracing). Gave us the confidence to ship new features at pace and recover quickly, even with a growing customer base.
• Introduced pubsub system for running periodic tasks and expensive operations like PDF export, OCR and Search + RAG indexing without impacting user experience.
• Re-architected our user-facing python automation system to be more beginner-friendly and easier for us to maintain.
• Stood up the infrastructure for our next generation “Seal” app.
• Added the ability to print and scan labels from the browser, for real-world asset management.
• Buzzwords: GxP, PostgreSQL, Full Stack Typescript, React, GraphQL, Python, Pandas, Github Actions, PubSub, DataDog, GCP, Gemini.

Tably - Senior Software Engineer - 10/2021 - 07/2022

Tably is an early stage startup. The core idea is very similar to Google Sheets, but with key insights that allow it to be taken in a different direction.

• Created our data import pipeline for multiple different data sources (based on Airbyte - read more at https://tably.com/blog/connecting-people-with-their-data).
  • Drove the selection of an ergonomic frontend web framework (Sycamore) and submitted patches to make it suit our needs.
• Improved the ergonomics and safety of our borsh+OT-based data layer.
• Worked with CEO on designing and running direction-setting workshops.
• Mentored junior engineers on sometimes orthogonal projects, and with senior engineers on mentoring junior engineers.
• Buzzwords: Mentoring, Full Stack Rust, WebAssembly, Operational Transforms, Extract Transform Load, Airbyte, JSONSchema, AWS, Github Actions.

Red Badger - Senior Software Engineer - 10/2019 - 10/2021

Red Badger is a software consultancy, deploying product led teams into blue-chip companies.

• Worked on a TransferWise clone for Santander:
  • Refactored ledger logic, to prevent webhook retries from causing data inconsistency (Typescript helped a lot here).
  • Implemented multi-tenant support, and enabled compliance testing ready for launch.
  • Handed over key pieces of technology and ways of working to incoming supplier.
• Wrote a communication and file sharing platform for NHS England:
  • Mentored junior team members on Rust (sqlx + async-graphql) and Kubernetes.
  • Learned about complexity and stakeholder management.
• Wrote a public facing compensation claim flow for NHS Wales’ covid response.
  • Learned about scope reduction, and executing on short timescales with external dependencies.
• Wrote wasmCloud demo for Cloud Native Compute Foundation conference:
  • Distributed NATS/NGS lattice for automatic failover + Kubernetes for scaling.
  • Multi-Cloud cluster setup across AWS and GCP, using Pulumi
  • Learned about Developer Experience design, through the lens of Employee Experience design.
• Line Managed two other engineers:
  • Facilitated a career change from Test Lead to Software Engineer
  • Managed skills progression and advocated for promotions (using a “ladder” based framework)
• Buzzwords: Line Management, Full Stack Typescript, Full Stack Rust, Next.js, WebAssembly, PostgreSQL, NATS, GCP, Azure, Github Actions, Pulumi, Terraform, Kubernetes.

Conversocial - Senior Software Engineer - 12/2015 - 07/2019

Conversocial is a SaaS company, providing call-centre software for dealing with queries on social media.

• Integrated with Twitter and Facebook APIs for real-time messaging.
• Consumed from the Twitter and Facebook firehoses.
• Debugged MongoDB and RabbitMQ outages at scale.
• Brought the platform (previously delete-nothing) into GDPR compliance.
• Led a team to deal with compliance fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
• Rewrote core app frontend from knockout to React + Redux + CSSModules.
• Migrated our local development environment from Vagrant to Docker For Mac
• Buzzwords: Python, Django, MongoDB, RabbitMQ, GDPR, Webhooks, Twitter, Facebook, Docker.

Truphone - Software Engineer - 09/2012 - 03/2014

Truphone is a “small” mobile network. I worked in their labs team.

• Deployed and maintained the SIP and XMPP real-time voice and instant messaging servers to support the Truphone app.
• Shared knowledge with others on XMPP and git.
• Applied DevOps reliability/scalability and deployability principles (puppet, monitoring and process supervision).
• Buzzwords: XMPP, SIP, VoIP, Open Standards, DevOps, Puppet, PubSub.

Collabora - Software Engineer - 09/2009 - 09/2011

Collabora is an Open Source Software Consultancy which maintains many core pieces of technology for Desktop Linux.

• Developed and maintained APIs and protocol implementations for the Telepathy VoIP/IM framework.
• Received training from core GStreamer maintainers.
• Developed XMPP to SIP bridge, and debugged GStreamer/SIP Phone incompatibilities using WireShark.
• Wrote asynchronous networking/IPC code in C, for constrained Linux systems (Nokia N900).
• Buzzwords: Desktop Linux, Embedded Linux, VoIP, Python, C, GStreamer, GObject.

Education

University of Cambridge - Master of Engineering, Information Engineering - 2005 - 2009

• General foundation in all engineering disciplines.
• Specialised in signal processing, with a masters project in music visualisation.