Jen Garner

About

Friendly and enthusiastic programmer with experience developing software for financial and scientific applications. I enjoy problem solving and designing robust software. My focus is on full-stack web development, including data modelling, user interface design, user experience, analytics, scalability, testing, packaging, and deployment.

https://github.com/peawagon ca.linkedin.com/in/jen-garner https://peawagon.github.io/webdev

I'm not a robot

My hobbies include playing guitar/bass, video games, writing, and microelectronics. I am currently in a love-hate relationship with the back barbell squat. I wonder when AI agents will start sending cat videos to one other instead of doing work.

Skills

Software Development, Testing, and CI/CD

Knowing that your software works is important for sleeping well at night. Practicing defensive programming and shaping assumptions are skills that I work on regularly. I enjoy talking with large-language models (LLMs) to get feedback on my data models, API designs, and testing scope.

Operating Systems

Windows
Ubuntu
Linux Mint
Fedora
MacOSX

Databasing

Postgres
MySQL
MongoDB
Oracle

Markup Languages

HTML5 & CSS3
LaTeX
Markdown
toml/yaml

Programming Languages

Python
Rust
JavaScript
TypeScript
C++
R
C#
Java

Tools/Libraries

Visual Studio Code
Apache Airflow
Microsoft Office, SharePoint, & PowerApps
Google Workspace (including Administration)
Python Data Analytics (Matplotlib, Pandas, NumPy)
Web Frameworks (Django, Flask, NextJS)
Frontend (Bootstrap, FontAwesome, Plotly Dash)
Music Production (FL Studio)
Video Editing (Camtasia)
Mobile Development (Android Studio)
Game Development (Godot, Unreal Engine)

CI/CD and Testing

Docker (Dockerfile)
Git (Version Control)
Pytest/Nosetests/Pytest Coverage
Jenkins (Jenkinsfile)
Bitbucket/Bitbucket Pipelines
Github/Github Actions
Slackbot
Travis CI
Cargo

Cloud Development

I enjoy automating build infrastructure and learning how to leverage new services. I seek opportunities to optimize build targets, shrink attack surfaces, and standardize builds across development, staging, and production environments.

Terraform/Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
IAM, Organization Policies, and Lifecycle Policies
SSL Certificates and DNS Management
Application Load Balancers and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Some AWS infrastructure I've worked with:

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Some GCP infrastructure I've worked with:

Work Experience

Head of Technology - Cloud Platform and Analytics

SusTern Inc. Aug, 2023 - Present

Design, document, and implement web-based applications (Django, NextJS).
Manage team members, GitHub organization, and Cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP).
Lead deployments, set code quality standards, and package software (including testing and release).

Software Developer

SocïVolta Inc. Apr, 2021 - July, 2023

Write Python code to extract, transform, and load data into AWS S3 buckets and MySQL database.
Automate submission to energy markets.
Develop, package, test, and document AWS Lambda functions.
Connect AWS Lambda functions to AWS API Gateway and monitor cloudwatch logs.
Refactor old code libraries to add features and improve testing coverage/metrics.
Manage MySQL databases, including creating and modifying tables and writing views.

Technical Support Specialist

Advanced Chemistry Development Inc. Sep, 2019 - Apr, 2021

Help customers to configure and use ACD/Labs software, including server and client side setup.
Troubleshoot installation/connection issues, gather feedback for new feature requests, and write bug reports.
Write documentation and provide training sessions.
Make software macros to automate processing workflows.

Master's Student & Teaching Assistant

McMaster University Sep, 2017 - Sep, 2019

Write Python program for finding optimal chemical geometries.
Participate in Cybernetic Orchestra, using code to make music.
Supervise, grade, and demonstrate laboratory experiments for general chemistry, organic chemistry, and thermodynamics.

Research Assistant

University of Guelph Sep, 2016 - Aug, 2017

Visualise fluorescence data using Python and Matplotlib.
Conduct molecular dynamics simulations of proteins using high performance computing (Compute Canada).
Automate and process jobs using Python and Bash scripts.

Education

M.Sc. Chemistry

McMaster University Sep, 2017 - Sep, 2019

Thesis work: Conformer Searching using an Evolutionary Algorithm

B.Sc. Chemistry, Mathematics Minor, Coop

University of Guelph Sep, 2012 - Dec, 2016

Math research project: Hierarchical Clustering and Data Correlation for Chemical Compounds

Chemistry research project: Using Iodine as a dopant for metal-radical materials to investigate possible charge-transfer salts

Coop Positions

Concordia University (Montréal, QC) May, 2016 - Aug, 2016

Xerox Research Centre of Canada (Mississauga, ON) May, 2015 - Dec, 2015

SNOLAB (Sudbury, ON) Jan, 2014 - Apr, 2014

Academic

D.E. Culham, D. Marom, R. Boutin, J. Garner, T.N. Ozturk, N. Sahtout, L. Tempelhagen, G. Lamoureux and J.M. Wood. (2018) Dual role of the C-terminal domain in osmosensing by bacterial osmolyte transporter ProP. Biophys J 115:2152-2166, DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.10.023
T. Romantsov, K. Gonzalez, N. Sahtout, D.E. Culham, C. Coumoundouros, J. Garner, C.H. Kerr, L. Chang, R.J. Turner, J.M. Wood. (2018) Cardiolipin synthase A colocalizes with cardiolipin and osmosensing transporter ProP at the poles of Escherichia coli cells. Mol Microbiol 107:623-638, DOI: 10.1111/mmi.13904
T. Romantsov, D.E. Culham, T. Caplan, J. Garner, R.S. Hodges and J.M. Wood (2016) ProP-ProP and ProP-phospholipid interactions determine the subcellular distribution of osmosensing transporter ProP in Escherichia coli. Mol Microbiol 103:469-482, DOI: 10.1111/mmi.13569
D. Ashlock, S. Gillis, J. Garner and G. Fogel, (2015) Evolving DNA classifiers with extinction based ring optimization. 2015 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CIBCB) 1-8, DOI: 10.1109/CIBCB.2015.7300312
J. Garner and D. Ashlock (2015) Evolution of 2D apoptotic cellular automata. 2015 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2160-2167, DOI: 10.1109/CEC.2015.7257151