patrick gaston headshot
About me

I’m a Linguist & Full-Stack Software Engineer with more than 6 years of experience and a passion for innovation & turning concepts into reality

Currently, I'm a Senior Software Engineer on the Intuit ProConnect Team, where I specialize in building innovative software solutions for professional tax customers. I actively contribute to shaping the future through regular participation in innovation initiatives, driving the development of cutting-edge products and software.

View my Resume
I've worked with
What I Do

My Expertise

In summary: Full-Stack Java Developer with experience using React and Angular. Familiar with CI/CD and leveraging AWS Cloud Infrastructure

Backend Development

Rest API's • Java + Spring Boot • Python + Django

Frontend Development

JavaScript • HTML • CSS • Angular 2+ • React

Web Architecture

Monolithic & Microservice Architecure • Modernization

Cloud Infrastructure

AWS Cloud Containerization + Security/Identity + Databases

10m+
Members using
products I help build
07+
Years
Coding
04
Pending
Patents
Experience

Professional Experience

Most of my experience has been in Financial Technology (FinTech) ranging from modernizing legacy (outdated) systems to innovation in the bank space.

Senior Software Engineer, Intuit

May 2022 ─ Present

Senior Software Engineering position with Intuit's ProTax Team:
• Spearheaded greenfield development, constructing a robust microservice architecture utilizing Java 8 and 11, along with React
• Contributed to the development of platform solutions, driving the implementation of innovative features and functionality used across the company
• Held a pivotal role as the quality champion, responsible for identifying and enhancing engineering practices that resulted in a significant reduction of defects
• Empower team members - including other developers as well as Technical Support and QA - through technical mentoring, contributions to the team’s documentation libraries, and providing automation for manual tasks where appropriate

Software Engineer I, USAA

August 2021 ─ May 2022

Tech Lead Software Engineering position with USAA's Bank Innovation team:
• Helped lead the conversion of a legacy process using Java 5 to a modern microservice architecture application leveraging Java + Spring Boot and React
• Developed and led Bank Innovation's engineering onboarding and training program for incoming engineers - including Interviewing potential team members
• Streamlined logging solution by leveraging Kafka event-driven architecture among various distributed applications
• Participated in regular innovation/invention sessions for the Bank Innovation group that often led to patent submissions

Software Engineer II, USAA

April 2020 ─ August 2021

Mid-Level Software Engineering position with USAA's Bank Innovation team:
• Identify and manage existing and emerging risks that stem from business activities and the job role
• Spearheaded dev CI/CD and code review process by utilizing GitLab templating which made a significant improvement on code quality and increased code delivery speed by over 3%
• Improved REST API service performance from over 10 seconds to around 3 seconds by Implementing multi-threading/asynchronous solutions via Spring to meet business SLO's
• Participated in regular innovation/invention sessions for the Bank Innovation group that often led to patent submissions

Software Developer III, Paychex, Inc.

June 2018 ─ March 2020

Mid-Level Software Engineering position working to modernize a legacy financial system:
• Designed and led our team's security improvements to our pipeline via sonarQube, Including making CI/CD changes to incorporate built-in quality checks to meet team requirements
• Supported our application in production via an on-call rotation by monitoring real-time production logs, conducting analysis, doing thorough write-ups and implementing a solution
• Completed more complex program changes to translate specifications and/or requirements into code

Software Developer II, Paychex, Inc.

February 2017 ─ June 2018

Software Engineering position working to modernize a legacy financial system:
• Collaborated with the engineering team to plan, design, and develop converting a legacy monolithic Java 5 application to a microservice architecture using Java 8+ and Angular 2+
• Built a group of microservices including a gateway (leveraging Netflix Zuul) and various business services
• Saved dozens of man-hours per month by streamlining the local development process by helping develop docker instances of our complex legacy + modern application in parallel to help reduce development and testing time
• Contributed to discussions and used engineering expertise to implement architectural-level design decisions

Assistant Instructor (TA), Skill Distillery Full-Stack Java Bootcamp.

March 2017 ─ December 2017

Teaching position at one of the only Java Coding Bootcamps in the Country:
• Delivered a range of teaching and assessment activities including mini-lectures to hands-on tutorials directed towards the delivery of complex concepts to students
• Support program with constant student-department feedback loop to better assess the needs of future cohorts
• Participate in the assessment process using a variety of methods and techniques and provide effective timely and appropriate feedback to students to support their learning

Linguist & Researcher, Multilingual and Multicultural Communications Center (Stony Brook University, NY)

January 2015 ─ May 2016

• Examined the communicative adaptations and transformations by individuals and groups as they transcend languages and cultures
• Informed the public on the means and meanings of developing multilingual and multicultural repertoires
• Generated knowledge on the impact of global mobility and technological innovation on language practices
• Conducted research on and held interviews with world-renowned, industry-leading linguists

Tactical Power Generation Specialist + Paratrooper, U.S. Army (Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Baghdad, Iraq)

2010 ─ 2013

Skills learned: Leadership, Ultimate Teamwork, Organization, Stress Management
• Performed field and sustainment level maintenance on tactical, utility, and precise power generation sets, internal combustion engines, and associated equipment
• Supervised lower grade soldiers and provided technical guidance in the areas of field and sustainment level maintenance. Including servicing, troubleshooting, and repairing power generation equipment through 200KW
• Helped supervise and teach the Iraqi Forces in the principles above on a Tour of Duty in Iraq (2011)

Education

University + Boot Camp

After making a shift from studying electrical engineering to pursue my passion - language - I started studying linguistics. I stumbled upon computational linguistics and it was a perfect blend of all things I enjoyed. I've been living at the intersection of language and technology ever since.

B.A. Linguistics, Stony Brook University

Aug 2014 ─ May 2016

• B.A. Linguistics (Special Interest in Theoretical & Computational Linguistics)
• Focus on Natural Language Processing & Language Acquisition
• Studied 1 year (2 semesters) of both French and Arabic (NSA’s STARTALK Government Program)
• Vice President of the Undergraduate Linguistics Club

Full-Stack Java Web Developer Certificate, Skill Distillery Full-Stack Java Bootcamp

July 2016 ─ Nov 2016

• 19-week @ 50+ hrs per week intensive programming boot camp. Technologies taught/practiced include: Java SE/EE, Spring MVC, Maven, MySQL, MongoDB, JPA, RESTful web services, XML, HTML5/CSS3, JavaScript, (JQuery, Node, Angular), Linux and Git/Github.
• Additionally, industry best practices in data-modeling, design patterns, Agile methodologies, and paired-programming were utilized daily.

Skills

What feels like learning a new technology a day

This is not an exhaustive list of skills - just an overview. For a full list, check out my resume!

Portfolio

Some featured past Works

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~Jhon Doe, CEO Twitter
Reference

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~Danna Smith, CFO Snapchat
Faq

Some common questions

Answers to a few questions I get asked often.

Q.

Why Linguistics?

A.

I've been passionate about language and specifically - culture - for as long as I can remember. I was that young kid making up new words and languages all the time. I'm half Haitian/half Jamaican so I was exposed to two completely different cultures -outside of the American culture growing up in the U.S. As I tried to find my place and navigate my surroundings, I was drawn to how language and culture can really shape an identity as I tried to find my own. That - and the fact that my dad speaks about 4 languages is probably where that passion came from.

Q.

Do you freelance?

A.

I don't have the time to freelance at the moment but I do own a digital product design & development company - After Seven Studio. Myself and small team of creatives will take on projects from time to time. You can check there to see our work and if we are currently accepting any new projects.

Q.

What are your Hobbies?

A.

In my free time, you can find me building applications (I'm always coding) , playing my guitar, working out, building/working on my classic car (1972 Datsun 240z), learning a language, or traveling

Contact me

Let's Get in Touch

Have a project in mind? Looking to partner or work together? Lets' connect on Linkedin.