Erin “Laser” Swenson-Healey
California, USA | github.com/laser | ICQ: 2176689
Summary
I’m an 1990’s-forged nerd (think 2600 Magazine, IPX emulators, Rifts,
DikuMUDs, and the turbo button) and lifelong technologist with a passion
for solving human problems with computer software. I have 25 years of
experience building mission-critical systems from roboticized
manufacturing cells to cryptocurrencies and a track record of delivering
foundational infrastructure at companies ranging from startups to public
enterprises. I have deep expertise in system architecture, platform
engineering, and turning complex technical challenges into
production-ready software.
Experience
Hadrian | Staff
Software Engineer, Robotics
March 2023 - Present
Project 1: Automated Manufacturing Cell ($10MM-$15MM hardware
per cell)
- Architected and implemented control system for first automated CNC
cell at Hadrian (12 five-axis machines, 2 KUKA robots)
- Achieved 50% cost reduction ($7.2MM per cell) with 99.99% uptime for
24/7 “lights-out” production
- Designed on-call rotation and started “zero defects” culture where
every ERROR-level/off-nominal system behavior log triggers pages to
on-call duty
- Delivered 110K lines of TypeScript (60K implementation, 50K tests)
with test suite robust enough to deploy straight to production w/out
pre-production environment or simulation
- Built fault-tolerant system where any component can fail without
stopping production
- Built blessed-based TUI for administering/troubleshooting control
system
Project 2: libcontrol Platform Product
- Generalized linear rail control system into reusable platform
adopted by 3 teams (CNC, CMM, tool-building)
- Reduced control system development time from ~7 months to 3-4
weeks
- Provides data persistence, task processing, alarm management,
telemetry, resource locking, and admin TUI
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js, Go, SQLite, Python,
PostgreSQL, Datadog, ROS 2, RoboDK
November 2021 - March 2023
- Led platform team managing RabbitMQ and Kafka clusters for 250+
engineers across 75 applications
- Architected and executed company-wide migration from RabbitMQ to
Kafka, saving $50K/month
- Built SFIX-specific, messaging-focused libraries in Ruby and Go
- Optimized librdkafka performance through configuration tuning and
FFI work
- Improved platform reliability by standardizing on Confluent Cloud,
eliminating frequent CloudAMQP outages
Technologies: Ruby, Go, Kafka, RabbitMQ, librdkafka, Confluent
Cloud, CloudAMQP, Sidekiq
Carbon Five | Principal
Developer
March 2013 - November 2021
Protocol Labs - Filecoin Implementation ($1B+ market
cap)
- One of 10 founding engineers building initial Filecoin node
implementation
- Built proof-of-storage scheduler in Rust, managing cryptographic
proof generation and customer data persistence
- Sole developer of FFI bindings between Go node and Rust proof system
- no memory leaks since launch
- Bridged gap between cryptographers and engineers, translating
theoretical concepts to production code
- Set up CI/CD, cloud testing infrastructure, and mentored team on
testing and quality practices
- Multi-year project w/very successful launch
Other Projects
- Gap Inc. - Forecasting and inventory management systems
- First Republic Bank - Custom CRM + Jenkins infrastructure
- Fandango - Reverse proxy microservice aggregation + caching
system
- Red Bull - Event management system
- NPFL - Scoring system used to power the Jumbotron
Technologies: Go, Rust, TypeScript, RDBMS, NoSQL
Open Source Work
I have made significant contributions to several high-use open-source
projects over the years. If you want to get an idea for how I write
software, these links would be a good place to start:
Talks and Blog Posts
I have given a number of talks over the last few years on a variety
of technical subjects. This is a non-exhaustive list, but gives some
idea of the things that I’ve been thinking about over the last decade or
so. If you’d like to see samples of architectural documents that I’ve
produced in the past, please feel free to ask.
Education
University of Washington - Bachelor of Arts
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - Extended
study (CEFR B2 Spanish)