Alanna McLafferty

Alanna McLafferty

Software Engineer


About

About

I would like to contribute my skills, knowledge, and time to projects that help and empower people.

Experience

Experience

  • Senior Product Engineer, ProPublica

    Jan, 2024 - Present

  • Senior Software Engineer

    Oct, 2022 - Aug, 2023 11 months

    Part of a small team working on censorship resistant, decentralized, peer-to-peer VPN technology for a stealth startup.

    • Built accounts, authentication, and payments. This functionality was crucial to the company securing $3 million in Seed Funding

    • Enhanced core technologies and VPN desktop application

    • Researched and applied anti-censorship techniques and peer-to-peer technologies

    • Setup and documented infrastructure and deployment processes

    • Provided techinical feedback and guidance on proposed changes

  • Senior Software Engineer | Software Engineer, KickUp Inc.

    Jun, 2018 - Sept, 2022 4 years, 3 months

    Responsible for KickUp's Professional Learning and Growth platform.

    • Developed full stack features in JavaScript, Python, React JS, Django, GraphQL and PostgreSQL

    • Provided technical feedback, guidance, and mentorship

    • Researched new capabilities and technologies

    • Ensured reliability and security of the platform as member of Ops Team

    • Led projects from architecture planning through to deployment

    • Guided partner organizations through SAML Single Sign On integration

    • Founded an Engineering Apprenticeship program in 2020

  • Software Developer, Testfire Inc.

    Feb, 2018 - Jun, 2018 4 months

    Responsible for Hendrix.ai, an AI powered virtual meeting assistant.

    • Full stack development in TypeScript with Node.js, React, and CouchDB

  • Software Design & Architecture Subject Expert, Faculty of Science, University of Alberta

    May, 2017 - Dec, 2017 8 months

    Helped develop a four course specialization, Software Design & Architecture on Coursera.

  • Summer Research Assistant, Computing Science Department, University of Alberta

    May, 2017 - Aug, 2017 4 months

    Assisted Professor Elmallah with research on Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks.

    • Wrote Python programs to simulate free-floating transmitting nodes in the Gulf Stream

    • Implemented algorithms to analyze simulations

    • Plotted trajectories, compared statistics and metrics of interest

  • Teaching Assistant, Computing Science Department, University of Alberta

    Sep, 2016 - Dec, 2016 4 months   |   Jan, 2017 - May, 2017 4 months   |   Jul, 2017 - Aug, 2017 2 months

    • Mentored students in Python, algorithms and data structures

    • Supervised lab periods, proctored exams, graded lab assignments and exams

  • Summer Research Assistant, Computing Science Department, University of Alberta

    May, 2015 - Aug, 2015 4 months

    Benchmarked the power consumption of mobile apps for Professor Hindle's Green Star project.

    • Defined user test cases for common mobile app tasks

    • Wrote bash scripts to simulate human completetion of these tasks

Skills

Skills

  • Languages
    Bash C CSS CUDA C Golang HTML Idris JavaScript Java MIPS Assembly OpenCL Python Rust SPARQL SQL TypeScript
  • Databases
    CouchDB MySQL PostgreSQL SQLite
  • Frameworks
    Django Node.js React
  • Other Tools & Technologies
    Android Studio Arduino AWS Blender Celery Circle CI Coda Docker Domain Fronting Elasticsearch Fastly git github gogs GraphQL HTTPS httpd Jitsi Let's Encrypt Loom LunaNode Mailtrap Matplotlib NAT traversal Nginx Notion NumPy Oauth OpenBSD OONI PageCrypt Password managers rebass redux-form redux-saga relayd SAML-based SSO Snowflake Stripe ssh Tailwind CSS Tinkercad Ubuntu Websockets XML
Education

Education

  • Specialization in Computing Science, Bachelor,   University of Alberta

    Completed: June, 2017

    Introduction to the Foundations of Computation I & II Practical Programming Methodology Algorithms I Computer Organization & Architecture I Formal Systems & Logic File & Database Management Introduction to Software Engineering Computer Networks Security in a Networked World Intelligent Systems Database Management Systems GPU Programming Web Applications & Architecture Formal Languages, Automata & Computability Honors Calculus I Elementary Calculus II Intermediate Calculus I & II Honors Linear Algebra I & II Introduction to Differential Equations Introduction to Applied Statistics I & II Newtonian Mechanics & Relativity Fluids & Waves Classical Mechanics Introduction to Modern Physics Electricity & Magnetism Experimental & Statistical Methods Classic Experiments in Physics
Interests

Interests

  • anonymity antique buttons archive.org arts & crafts biking cats cryptography email spam Etsy gardening knitting NewPipe OpenStreetMap sewing uBlock Origin