Hi, I'm Austin Riba.

I've been working professionally as a software engineer for 10 years in a variety of industries, technologies and roles. Over this time I've taken on the role of a generalist with experience in full stack development, devops and product management.

I was lured into technology and the web at an early age by the promise of being able to build something and share it with the world. I still get excited about it to this day.

Projects Experience Github

Software Development

I'm happy to jump into existing projects and I excel at starting products from scratch. Taking an idea and turning it into a tangible product is one of my favorite aspects of development. I can work with you through the process of requirement gathering, system architecture, development, deployment and iteration.

I may be available for software consultancy. Contact me if you are interested in working together.

Skills

The technologies I work with the most, ordered from most to least familiarity:

Languages: Python, Javascript, Java, shell, Go.
Backend: Django (DRF), Flask, FastAPI, Ruby on Rails.
Fontend: Vue.js, jQuery, Angular.
Devops: Docker, AWS, Heroku.
Project Management: Trello, Pivotal, Atlassian.
Other: Linux, PostGIS, Ionic.

I also have experience with software and tools specific to Astronomy including AstroPy, JS9, Astrometry.net, .fits files, etc.

Experience
Freelance Developer January 2020 - Present
  • A few stealth projects still under development 😉
  • Developed the Forward Lateral lateral inspection software. Took the project from mockups, to a MVP, to full production deployment in less than 5 months. Read more in the Santa Barbara Independent.
  • Helped develop the TreasureMap, a web app designed to help astronomers with electromagnetic followup of gravitational-wave (GW) events.
  • Merged my side project Trail Care with LuvTrails to enhance both platforms and bring more business opportunity to the project.
Las Cumbres Observatory Senior Software Engineer August 2015-January 2020
  • Principal developer of the TOM Toolkit project, an open source framework built on Django for managing Astronomical observing programs.
  • Built the LCO Archive, a data warehouse and pipeline for 60+ TB of data on Amazon with a fully programmatic API.
  • Designed and developed the Valhalla Observation Portal: the main user facing interface for Astronomers into the observatory as well as the network's request database.
  • Mentored and advised junior developers in an array of development projects.
New Context Services Senior Software Engineer April 2015-August 2015
  • Worked with a fully remote team on a legacy web project. Added extra functionality in the form of highly interactive and responsive pages using a modern JS framework with no negative impact to the legacy code.
Silent Circle LCC Senior Software Engineer November 2013-April 2015
  • Using a Django/ Python stack built out the business back end for the company’s application suite. Application was designed to handle user subscription, payment and authentication.
  • Designed and built a business management dashboard for the largest clients designed to handle operations on hundreds of thousands of users.
Locus Energy Software Engineer April 2011-October 2011
  • Completed a contract to move the company's infrastructure from traditional hosting to AWS. Required migrating tens of Linux and Windows servers, a VPN and a clustered database on to Amazon's largest instance types (at the time).
CSRware Inc Software Engineer April 2010-November 2013
  • Using Spring and Java developed a SASS application for businesses that tracked their ecological impact by analyzing consumed utility bills and other raw data and computed emissions, waste, heat, etc.

Education

2008-2011 Southern Oregon University, B.S. Computer Science

Pedal Driven?

If you meet me in person, chances are I'll be wearing a pair of bike shoes with my laptop on my back. Not only is cycling one of my biggest hobbies, I believe in the bike's enormous potential to transform our lives through positive impacts on the environment, economics, social interaction, city planning and personal health. I write about it from time to time.