Justin Fernbaugh

About Me & Cats

Full Name:Justin Fernbaugh
Email:fernbaughj@gmail.com
Github:Justin-Fernbaugh
Location:Portland Oregon

Greetings!

As a results-driven Software and Platform Engineer, I bring a robust foundation in DevOps, cloud systems, and software development, underpinned by a Computer Science degree from Oregon State University and an AWS Solutions Architect certification. I thrive on designing and implementing scalable, high-performance solutions using technologies like Go, Bazel, GCP/AWS, and Kubernetes.

I have had the privilege of making a real business impact at great organizations. At Apex Fintech Solutions, I optimized CI/CD pipelines, achieving a 285% median performance improvement, and engineered event-driven microservices that handle over 500 daily deployments across 2,500 services. All while maintaining deployment state in GitOps, and a codebase in a 5 million+ line monorepo. Moreover, at Oregon State's Open Source Lab, I enhanced critical infrastructure for more than 100 clients, including the Linux Foundation and Apache Software, and deployed distributed PostgreSQL databases impacting over 150 organizations.

When I'm not at my keyboard, I'm dedicated to exploring emerging technologies, managing my home server lab, following Formula 1 racing, and hiking throughout the Pacific Northwest.

My Resume

Work Experience
Associate Platform Engineer
Apex Fintech Solutions - Nov 2024 - Current

Leveraging Go, Bazel, and infrastructure as code tools on the Developer experience team.
Startup Co-Founder
Lavndr - June 2024 - Current

Head of engineering leveraging AI to create smarter cannabis compliance systems.
Systems Engineer
Oregon State University - Nov 2022 - August 2024

Previously working for Open Source Labs has taught immeasurable amounts about working with infrastructure. The day to day involved managing and deploying virtualized environments for clients through the infrastructure-as-code tool Chef. In addition, to deploying higher profile projects such as a high-availability PostgreSQL cluster with automatic failover capabilites.
Software Engineer
Lithia and Driveway - Sep 2022 - Nov 2022

Part-time role while attending University full-time. Whilst there I focused on back-end and system development. Unfortunately, this was short-lived as the position was eliminated during a reorganization due to macro economic conditions.
Software Engineer Intern
Lithia and Driveway - Jun 2022 - Sep 2022

During my internship I worked as a part of a team developing internal tools supporting business critical operations such as processing loans/liens. Specifically, I developed APIs for these operations.
Instructor
Coding with Kids - Mar 2019 - Feb 2020

I was an Instructor teaching programming fundamentals throughout my senior year of high school. I had the opportunity to teach at a variety of schools around and in the greater Portland area. The majority of my time was spent both developing curriculum and teaching to youth concepts ranging from basic conditionals to programming Arduinos in C.

Education
University
Oregon State University - 2020 - 2024

Majoring in Computer Science with applied option in web and mobile application development.
High School
Clackamas High School - 2016 - 2020

Three years of Electronics & Programming and Coding.