Jack Senechal

Senior Software Engineer · Cloud-Native Platforms & Pipelines

Located in Novato, CA (Marin County)
Phone: 415-779-2701
Email: jacksenechal@gmail.com
GitHub: github.com/jacksenechal
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacksenechal

Summary

• Senior software engineer with 15+ years building and operating production systems, including 6+ years leading teams
• Deep specialization in Kubernetes, containerized microservices, and cloud-native pipeline architecture
• Track record turning unreliable, high-incident platforms into dependable ones — ~100x reduction in errors on a multi-system data orchestration platform
• Led zero-downtime migrations of production workloads onto Kubernetes, including relational, document, and cache data tiers
• Designed and operated CI/CD and secure software delivery pipelines across multiple environments
• Committed mentor and coach who grew multiple junior engineers into senior SWE and engineering management roles
• Full-stack generalist across Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, and Ruby; comfortable owning a component end to end, from architecture through on-call

Industry Experience

Engineering Manager / Principal Software Engineer

Mavenlink / Kantata | Apr 2017 - Dec 2023 | San Francisco, CA

• M-Bridge Integration Platform (2 years): Led the team that rearchitected an agent-based pipeline platform performing multi-system data orchestration across many external systems. Took it from chronically unreliable to dependable: established operational metrics and monitoring that reduced errors and incidents by ~100x. Executed a zero-downtime migration to Kubernetes, including relational, document, and cache databases, with no customer-visible impact.
• Infrastructure Platform (4 years): Recruited and rebuilt the infrastructure and DevOps team from near-zero after mass departures. Migrated the entire Rails monolith and surrounding services ecosystem to Kubernetes. Transitioned a large legacy codebase to cloud-native Infrastructure-as-Code tooling (Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes). Designed and operated CI/CD pipelines for secure software delivery across multiple environments. Led the migration off a segfaulting production MySQL stack to managed RDS, eliminating an entire class of incidents.
• BI Data Pipeline (3 months): Led a transition team to take ownership of the analytics data pipeline and migrated it to Kubernetes.
• Reliability & Mentorship: Drove a sustained reliability push that dramatically reduced on-call incidents and improved team retention. Grew multiple junior engineers into senior SWE and Engineering Manager roles; mentored engineers across teams and led interviewing and hiring. Top Performer Award, 2021.

Infrastructure Engineer

Tobiko | Mar 2024 - Oct 2024 | Remote

• Designed, implemented, and operated a scalable cloud platform supporting production customer workloads, with a focus on reliability, security, and operational excellence.
• Operated Kubernetes platforms across cloud environments, supporting containerized services with strong observability and incident response practices.
• Built and maintained CI/CD pipelines for automated build, test, and deployment, reducing manual intervention and improving delivery speed.
• Implemented infrastructure as code and automation patterns to ensure consistent, repeatable deployments.
• Python, Pulumi, GCP, GKE, Cloud Run, CircleCI, Helm, Docker.

Co-founder & Fractional CTO

Building Humane Technology | June 2025 - Present | Remote

• Co-architect and lead development of HumaneBench.ai, an open-source evaluation framework built on AISI Inspect. Python, containerized execution, CI-driven test automation.
• Drive product and technical roadmap including production monitoring and multi-turn evaluation; currently leading a client contract implementation sprint.

Co-founder & Software Engineer

Alchemy Astrology (formerly Mirror Astrology) | Nov 2024 - Jul 2026 | Remote

• Full-stack product development: Ruby on Rails MVC, JavaScript, responsive UI/UX, Stripe integration, SSO authentication.
• Collaborated closely with co-founders on product direction, roadmap, and prioritization.

Lead Developer, Co-founder

Pegg | 2014 - 2017 | San Francisco, CA

• Designed, architected, and built a cross-platform mobile app from scratch (iOS/Android). Node.js backend, JS frontend, Firebase real-time systems, CI/CD to AWS/CloudFront via CircleCI.
• Established engineering workflow: pair programming, automated testing, continuous integration, and rapid deployment processes.

Earlier Career (2001 - 2014)

• Consultant & Entrepreneur (2008 - 2014): Founded OpenTest Pro (automated testing education). Built an e-commerce ordering system for Turnbull & Asser shirtmakers. Full-stack consulting in Ruby on Rails, Node.js, and D3 data visualization.
• Web Developer, OnForce, Inc (2006 - 2007): Introduced automated testing and CI. Built a comprehensive API test suite. Integrated the platform with Salesforce APIs.
• Development Lead, JBA Network (2003 - 2006): Lead programmer and project manager for mynewsletterbuilder.com — architected the initial release, then built and scaled the development team.

Open Source Projects

Scan MCP (2024 - Present)

MCP server for scanner automation and document digitization — a media capture and processing pipeline with smart device discovery, JSON Schema validation, and support for both local stdio and network HTTP transports. Privacy-first architecture. TypeScript/Node.js.

github.com/jacksenechal/scan-mcp

HumaneBench (2024 - Present)

Evaluation framework for measuring human-friendly behavior in AI assistants, built on AISI Inspect. Extensible scenario datasets with support for multiple LLM providers. Python.

github.com/buildinghumanetech/humanebench

Skills

• Cloud & Containers: Kubernetes, Docker, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Helm, Terraform, Ansible, Pulumi, Cloud-Native Architecture.
• Languages: Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, Ruby, Bash, SQL.
• Back-end & Data: Microservices, Distributed Systems, API Design (REST), PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Object-Oriented Design & Design Patterns.
• CI/CD & Testing: CircleCI, GitHub Actions, Make, PyTest, Automated Testing, TDD, Infrastructure as Code, Secure Software Delivery.
• Operations: Observability, Incident Response, On-Call Practice, Performance & Scalability Debugging, Zero-Downtime Migration.
• Front-end: React, Vue, HTML, CSS, Tailwind, Responsive Design.
• Leadership: Coaching & Mentoring, Technical Roadmap Ownership, Architectural Decision-Making, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Hiring, Agile/Scrum/Kanban.

Education

BA in Mathematics, minor in Computer Science

University of North Carolina at Asheville | May 2003

• Graduated with distinction in Mathematics. Undergraduate research in 4D fractals.

Recommendations

“Jack is an exceptional engineer and leader. He strives to deeply understand the technology he’s working on while remaining cognizant of the socio-technical components that may be a factor in any project. He’s thorough, detail-oriented, and outcome-oriented, which means the solutions he architects, builds, and collaborates on come out better. Jack also strives to be at the forefront of new technology and assess how he can leverage it. He does all this with a strong team mentality, is a phenomenal team player, and can effectively delegate to help lift others’ skill sets.”

— Brandon Clifford, Director of DevOps, Kantata

“Jack has had quite a profound impact on my career. As a young engineer, I was fortunate enough to work with Jack as my coach. He served as a great mentor, helping me build both technical and professional skills and forming me into the engineer that I am today. His mentorship was a key factor in elevating me from an incoming Junior Engineer to an Engineering Manager. Jack has a great curiosity and a strong set of technical capabilities that allow him to serve as a great example for others and a key contributor to any team!”

— Wesley Morlock, Engineering Manager, Kantata

“Jack is a fantastic engineer always ready to help solve problems and more importantly, teach you how to solve them. He guided me and my team through a bunch of challenging GitOps situations with patience and kindness, leading by example. Always diligent with his work, willing to roll up his sleeves to get things done and find creative solutions. Everyone would be lucky to have someone like him in their teams!”

— Cesar Palafox Garza, Principal Software Engineer, Kantata

“Jack is awesome at understanding the direction teams need to go to make important improvements in Kantata’s Engineering organization as a whole. He has been instrumental in building and implementing strategies to upgrade Ruby, Rails, and React. If I had any questions about infrastructure and Kubernetes he would be able to answer and provide solid explanations to the entire team.”

— Justin Hurstwright, Principal Software Engineer, Kantata

See additional recommendations on LinkedIn