Hi, I am Joshua DierickseFull Stack, DevOps, and Linux Enthusiast
Click here to check out out how I host this website on a home server using free and open source software!
Education
University of Waterloo
Computer Science
Waterloo, ON
09/2023 - 04/2028
GPA: 3.8
Activities and societies: Computer Science Club, Math Society, Hockey Intramurals Referee, Volleyball Club
• University of Waterloo President's Scholarship of Distinction
• Professional Institute Legacy Foundation Scholarship Award
University of Waterloo
Computer Science
Waterloo, ON
09/2023 - 04/2028
GPA: 3.8
Activities and societies: Computer Science Club, Math Society, Hockey Intramurals Referee, Volleyball Club
• University of Waterloo President's Scholarship of Distinction
• Professional Institute Legacy Foundation Scholarship Award
Waterloo Collegiate Institute
High School Diploma
Waterloo, ON
09/2019 - 06/2023
Grade: 98.33%
Leadership: Robotics Club Executive, Chess Club Executive
Sports: Cross Country, Track and Field, Ultimate Frisbee, Varsity Hockey
Clubs: Astronomy Club, Computer Science Club, Debate Club, DECA, Fed Prov
Waterloo Collegiate Institute
High School Diploma
Waterloo, ON
09/2019 - 06/2023
Grade: 98.33%
Leadership: Robotics Club Executive, Chess Club Executive
Sports: Cross Country, Track and Field, Ultimate Frisbee, Varsity Hockey
Clubs: Astronomy Club, Computer Science Club, Debate Club, DECA, Fed Prov
Experience
Meta
Production Engineer
Menlo Park, ON
Incoming
• Incoming for Summer 2026
Meta
Production Engineer
Menlo Park, ON
Incoming
• Incoming for Summer 2026
Shopify
Software Engineer
Toronto, ON
09/2025 - 12/2025
• Engineered a multi-threaded Bigtable connection keep-alive script, decreasing latency spikes by 95%.
• Built a fault-tolerant Kubernetes cron-job that fetches & stores data in memcached, decreasing lookup times by 80%.
• Developed a new Account Suspension flow, improving user experience for thousands of Shopify merchants, implemented a React frontend that interfaced with a scalable Ruby on Rails backend through GraphQL.
• Collaborated with product managers, designers, and backend engineers to develop and launch features.
Shopify
Software Engineer
Toronto, ON
09/2025 - 12/2025
• Engineered a multi-threaded Bigtable connection keep-alive script, decreasing latency spikes by 95%.
• Built a fault-tolerant Kubernetes cron-job that fetches & stores data in memcached, decreasing lookup times by 80%.
• Developed a new Account Suspension flow, improving user experience for thousands of Shopify merchants, implemented a React frontend that interfaced with a scalable Ruby on Rails backend through GraphQL.
• Collaborated with product managers, designers, and backend engineers to develop and launch features.
theScore
Software Engineer
Toronto, ON
01/2025 - Present
• Migrated 350M records between PostgreSQL databases via a Kafka powered fault-tolerant data pipeline; monitoring the health and progress of the migration with Datadog and ArgoCD.
• Cut a CircleCI pipeline's runtime by 40% with job parallelization and Docker image caching.
• Expanded GraphQL endpoints in a Phoenix backend and synced the values with other microservices using gRPC.
• Automated cleanup of 200K user records using an Elixir script executed in a Kubernetes cluster.
• Led development of a React-based internal tool that auto-generated HTML email templates, saving 150+ dev hours.
theScore
Software Engineer
Toronto, ON
01/2025 - Present
• Migrated 350M records between PostgreSQL databases via a Kafka powered fault-tolerant data pipeline; monitoring the health and progress of the migration with Datadog and ArgoCD.
• Cut a CircleCI pipeline's runtime by 40% with job parallelization and Docker image caching.
• Expanded GraphQL endpoints in a Phoenix backend and synced the values with other microservices using gRPC.
• Automated cleanup of 200K user records using an Elixir script executed in a Kubernetes cluster.
• Led development of a React-based internal tool that auto-generated HTML email templates, saving 150+ dev hours.
SigmaXL Inc.
Software Developer
Kitchener, ON
05/2024 - 08/2024
• Developed a new full-stack web portal and user database using TypeScript, NextJS, and PostgreSQL; decreasing deployment costs from $120/month to $8/month.
• Migrated over 6,000+ users from the old MySQL database to the new PostgreSQL database.
• Engineered a RAG AI customer support chatbot on a Flask backend with over 2 million words of context by leveraging GPT-4o mini, LangChain, and a ChromaDB vector database.
• Implemented an automated email verification system, programmatically sending emails with AWS SES.
• Created a customer support messaging system using an Express backend with Socket.IO for real-time bidirectional low-latency communication.
• Dockerized the NextJS, Express, and Flask applications; worked locally with docker-compose and deployed to the cloud on a Linux VPS using Bash scripts to automate CI/CD.
SigmaXL Inc.
Software Developer
Kitchener, ON
05/2024 - 08/2024
• Developed a new full-stack web portal and user database using TypeScript, NextJS, and PostgreSQL; decreasing deployment costs from $120/month to $8/month.
• Migrated over 6,000+ users from the old MySQL database to the new PostgreSQL database.
• Engineered a RAG AI customer support chatbot on a Flask backend with over 2 million words of context by leveraging GPT-4o mini, LangChain, and a ChromaDB vector database.
• Implemented an automated email verification system, programmatically sending emails with AWS SES.
• Created a customer support messaging system using an Express backend with Socket.IO for real-time bidirectional low-latency communication.
• Dockerized the NextJS, Express, and Flask applications; worked locally with docker-compose and deployed to the cloud on a Linux VPS using Bash scripts to automate CI/CD.
Art Vault
Backend Developer
Remote
04/2024 - 06/2024
• Developed backend API endpoints in NextJS to upload images to a Vercel Blob (similar to an AWS S3 bucket).
• Stored user data in a PostgreSQL database, leveraging Prisma ORM for improved development speed.
• Collaborated with a small team of developers to coordinate our project's development.
Art Vault
Backend Developer
Remote
04/2024 - 06/2024
• Developed backend API endpoints in NextJS to upload images to a Vercel Blob (similar to an AWS S3 bucket).
• Stored user data in a PostgreSQL database, leveraging Prisma ORM for improved development speed.
• Collaborated with a small team of developers to coordinate our project's development.
Venuiti Solutions Inc.
Software Intern
Waterloo, ON
08/2023
• Updated documentation on launching the T6 backend servers to improve the efficiency of onboarding.
• Learned the basics of computer networking (IP, DNS, HTTPS) as well as the companies backend structure (Spring Boot, Gradle, Maven).
Venuiti Solutions Inc.
Software Intern
Waterloo, ON
08/2023
• Updated documentation on launching the T6 backend servers to improve the efficiency of onboarding.
• Learned the basics of computer networking (IP, DNS, HTTPS) as well as the companies backend structure (Spring Boot, Gradle, Maven).
Projects
BookNotes™
|
Note Taking For Books
Cooking Mama
|
AI Cooking Assistant
Symphony Strips
|
Piano Stairs Alternative
!Tinder
|
Hackathon Team Matchmaker
Various Games
|
Chess, Flappy Bird, etc.
Emotions
|
Face and Emotion Tracking
Mobility+
|
AI Physiotherapist
Events Catalogue
|
For a Hypothetical Hackathon