Tony Ta Email & Phone Number

San Francisco, Ca, Us

San Francisco Bay Area

Developed secure, privacy-focused educational software provided free to hundreds of schools across the US. Worked in both legacy and greenfield codebases, in monolithic and microservices architectures, with deployments on platforms from Heroku to AWS. Leveraged a diverse tech stack, including Rails, React, and Node.Technical Architect, Along (along.org): Spearheaded the rapid launch of a product fostering connection teachers and students during the COVID pandemic. Made critical architectural decisions, fostering nimble development while ensuring future scalability and maintainability. Drove foundational domain modeling, application architecture, test strategy, and CI/CD, delivering the product in just 3 months for the 2020 back-to-school rollout.Data Privacy Technical Lead, Summit Learning (summitlearning.org): Principal owner of data privacy initiatives for an LMS serving 300+ schools and 300K+ users. Designed and implemented COPPA/FERPA-compliant data deletion systems for a tightly-coupled legacy application. Engineered a highly-optimized data export framework on a complex legacy data model. Served as key consultant for de-identification operations and data inventory implementation.Data Governance Technical Lead, Render (buildwithrender.com): Architected a reliable, auditable service for executing data deletion and export across a distributed microservices platform delivering cutting-edge AI-driven education tools. Led cross-team and cross-functional collaboration in a fast-paced environment, ensuring regulatory compliance and seamless integration while supporting rapid, decoupled iteration.Lead Engineer, Trust Team: Led security initiatives, including fortifying authentication, optimizing sessions and cookies, enhancing CSP security, and developing a robust authorization and permissions framework. Expertly managed security audits and played a key role in addressing security incidents.

San Francisco Bay Area

Rubyist, Debugging Badass, and Dependency Wrangler: Crafted top-tier performance management solutions with a dynamic, agile development team.Core Team Technical Lead: Guided developers in incrementally upgrading the Rails framework and key gem dependencies while maintaining seamless feature development. Decomposed a tightly-coupled Rails monolith into lean, modular components using Rails engines with clear, unidirectional dependencies.Lead Engineer of GDPR Compliance: Owned the erasure policy, cataloging PII and sensitive data, and implementing a self-maintaining, configuration-driven data expungement library. Ensured erasure events are safe, auditable, and timely.Steward of Quality Operations: Developed and maintained of internal Ruby libraries for pub-sub events, securing secrets, app configuration, background worker management, and performance telemetry. Maintained CI with multiple test suites on CircleCI, and developed strategies and tooling for QA and test automation.Performance Engineer: Designed load-testing strategies for scaling critical endpoints, ensuring performance optimizations and uninterrupted service for +100K-user enterprise customers.API Architect: Drove the design and implementation of an external REST API to industry standards (JSON API, OpenAPI), establishing best practices for versioning, authentication, and hexagonal architecture, laying a solid foundation for future API extensions.

San Francisco Bay Area

Rubyist, Polyglot Handyman, and Code Craftsmanship Advocate: Contributed to a small, fast-paced team developing and maintaining a Rails-centric marketplace platform with 10,000+ active users.Team Lead for Billing System Overhaul: Led a full-stack team to overhaul the billing system to successfully transition to a new business/payment model with Stripe, ensuring transactionality, traceability, and robust error handling.Led Engineer of Accountabilities Engine: Developed an accountabilities Rails engine for managing multi-level permissions across complex client/agency and admin/user hierarchies.Workshop Organizer and Educator: Led lunch-and-learn workshops focused on code quality, object-oriented design, system architecture, domain modeling, and testing strategies.API and Authentication Strategist: Designed APIs and authentication/authorization strategies for multiple applications, catering to public, customer, writer, admin, and service use cases.CI/CD Pipeline Manager: Managed continuous integration and deployment pipelines across multiple environments using GitHub, Heroku, and CircleCI; Administered and optimized databases including MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Solr for scalability and performance.Tooling Developer: Built development and testing tools to support a polyglot, multi-app, multi-database service-oriented architecture (SOA) system.

Greater Chicago Area

Completed 9-week intensive web development program. Learned and practiced Ruby on Rails, HTML5, CSS, Test Driven Development, Javascript (AJAX, jQuery), Git and Source Control, PostgreSQL, Geospatial Data, Heroku, and Agile Development.Acquired hands-on experience in full-stack web development through daily challenges and weekly group projects, including SQL data modeling, MVC patterns, RESTful APIs, UI/UX design, and server setup and deployment.Developed a strong understanding of version control, test-driven development, iterative development, and user-centered design, learning the importance of these practices in building robust web applications.Paired daily, cultivating essential non-technical developer qualities such as empathy, integrity, humility, openness to learning, and mentorship. Recognized that great developers not only write better code but also uplift their teams through positive impact and collaboration.

San Francisco Bay Area

Directed and managed the quality and technical operations across food and environmental testing, collaborating seamlessly with two lab directors, five section managers, and over 20 analysts in instrumental chromatography, microbiology, microscopy, and chemistry.Championed adherence to ISO/IEC 17025 and ISO 9001 quality standards, ensuring full compliance with FDA and other regulatory requirements by leading employee training, corrective/preventive actions, and internal audits.Updated and refined policies and procedures to meet FDA cGMP compliance for pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements, enhancing regulatory alignment.Authored, edited, and reviewed over 25 procedural and 30 technical documents integral to the quality management system, ensuring clarity and precision.Led and actively participated in annual reviews and internal audits, evaluating compliance, technical competence, document control, and record-keeping across four key company departments.

San Francisco Bay Area

Spearheaded method selection, development, validation, and execution of complex analyses, including total sugars, pesticide residues, vitamins, fatty acids, chemotherapeutic agents, and BPA.Provided the FDA with rapid, detailed analysis by generating and submitting over 50 comprehensive reports weekly, each encompassing 60+ pages of precise raw data, QC records, analytical worksheets, and sampling documentation.Performed sample compositing and preparation using advanced extraction, isolation, and derivatization techniques, adhering to standard protocols from AACC, AOAC, EPA, and FDA.Maintained peak operational efficiency of GC and HPLC instruments with multiple detectors (MS, MS/MS, ECD, FPD, NPD, UV/Vis, and RI), ensuring seamless performance of equipment from Shimadzu, HP, Agilent, Varian, and Thermo.Managed procurement and inventory for equipment, reagents, and consumables, supporting 12 analysts across two laboratory sections.

Delivered immersive English language instruction to both children and adults, enabling first-time learners in Vietnam to achieve fluency through an engaging, fully immersive curriculum.