Hello, I'm
Johnny Boursiquot
Experienced software engineer and professional maker
Over two decades of building software
- AI SystemsAgents, RAG, tool calling, MCP, evals
- Distributed SystemsCaching, events, coordination
- Cloud ArchitectureContainers, serverless, IaC
- ReliabilityIncident command, tracing
- Security & ComplianceSOC 2, GDPR, PII protection
- Full-Stack EngineeringReact, TypeScript, Go, Java
- Product EngineeringSaaS from concept to launch
- LeadershipCTO, director, program lead
About
I'm a software engineer with over two decades of experience building and running production systems. These days I focus on AI engineering, cloud architecture, and distributed systems. Much of my recent work is getting LLM-powered and agentic systems ready for production, which means explicit control flow, guardrails, and the same observability and testing any other service gets.
I've been on several startup founding teams, including co-founding Skilltype, a cloud-based SaaS platform for workforce development, where I'm CTO. Along the way I was a Program Lead at Chick-fil-A and Director of Technology at Human Agency, and I helped establish site reliability engineering practices at Salesforce/Heroku. Knowing how systems behave once real users arrive shapes most of the engineering decisions I make.
I also speak and teach: conference keynotes, courses on O'Reilly and LinkedIn Learning, and years as a host of the Go Time podcast.
Experience
Skills and where I used them
Each spoke is a skill, and each dot on it is an organization where I used it, so longer spokes mean skills I've used in more places. Pick an organization to trace its dots around the ring, or hover a spoke.
Human Agency
- Restarted a stalled SOC 2 readiness program, delivering automated security controls across all active company systems, vendor tracking, and audit evidence collection.
- Built a commercial controls program ahead of the product's beta launch, including per-customer cost and margin tracking, usage attribution, vendor cost monitoring, and AI-assisted invoice processing workflows.
- Built much of the product front end in TypeScript and Next.js through AI-assisted development, on PostgreSQL and Redis.
- Fixed inefficiencies and set up guardrails in a codebase written mostly by non-engineers with AI tools.
TypeScript, Next.js, PostgreSQL, ORM, Redis, Anthropic, OpenAI, MCP, CI/CD
Chick-fil-A via Stable Kernel
- Lead architecture and delivery for Chick-fil-A's Loyalty Platform initiatives, working with product, engineering, and business teams.
- Cut cache infrastructure costs by 39% and improved latency for high-traffic promotion workloads.
- Traced DynamoDB throttling to thundering-herd cache expiration and designed a phased fix using TTL jitter, request deduplication, and distributed coordination.
- Designed location-scoped cache invalidation and event propagation that reduced promotion-data staleness from minutes to near real time.
- Hire engineers at Stable Kernel, document failure modes, and build Datadog diagnostics for release performance.
DynamoDB, caching, event propagation, Datadog
Rocket Farm
- Designed and built a serverless AWS IoT backend in Go for a connected-device product: gateway provisioning with X.509 certificates, a device registry, and MQTT command and control.
- Processed device telemetry and alarms with IoT rules, SQS, EventBridge, DynamoDB, and Lambda, and delivered over-the-air firmware updates through S3.
- Instrumented the system with OpenTelemetry traces and metrics sent to Honeycomb, and built device simulators for end-to-end testing.
- Shipped infrastructure with SAM and CloudFormation through GitHub Actions pipelines for dev, staging, and production.
Go, AWS IoT Core, MQTT, Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, EventBridge, S3, OpenTelemetry, Honeycomb, GitHub Actions
Skilltype
- Own product direction and engineering for Skilltype's library talent-management software, from initial concept through launch.
- Build across backend services and React front ends using Go, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, and AWS; rebuilt the web front end with React, TypeScript, and Vite.
- Build production AI features with Bedrock, Anthropic, and OpenAI, including RAG and tool-calling for customer workflows, and design APIs and MCP integrations for customers.
- Set testing, CI/CD, observability, and secure delivery standards, supporting GDPR-aware architecture, SOC 2-aligned practices, and TX-RAMP compliance.
- Hire and mentor engineers, review designs and code, and work with executive and product teams on what to build.
Go, Java, TypeScript, React, Vite, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, AWS, Bedrock
Salesforce
- Wrote shared Go instrumentation libraries to help service teams adopt OpenTelemetry, and standardized instrumentation patterns across services.
- Led the move from legacy monitoring to Honeycomb and distributed tracing, and helped service owners diagnose production behavior.
- Mentored engineers in Go, observability, and distributed systems.
Go, OpenTelemetry, Honeycomb
Heroku
- Built tooling and improved incident-response, deployment, and monitoring workflows for Heroku services.
- Served as incident commander during major production incidents, coordinating mitigation and communication.
- Helped Salesforce engineering teams adopt Heroku, and mentored engineers in Go, cloud infrastructure, and distributed systems.
ANet
- Led backend engineering and AWS modernization for an education SaaS product.
- Built CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation on AWS, and designed backend services and APIs.
- Guided engineering teams on AWS architecture and implementation.
Go, Java, PostgreSQL, Lambda, SQS, DynamoDB
InfluxData
- Worked on distributed time-series database infrastructure and enterprise SaaS services in Go.
Go
One Door
- Built retail-merchandising SaaS applications, APIs, and messaging.
Ruby on Rails, MySQL, RabbitMQ
Launch Academy
- Taught Ruby on Rails and web application development, and mentored new engineers.
Ruby on Rails
MAARK
- Owned products from concept through launch, hired engineers, and built enterprise SaaS, payments, and web applications across backend and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- Community
- GopherCon program chair
- Education
- M.S., Cloud Computing Architecture
B.S., Computer and Information Science - Published
- Contributing author, 97 Things Every SRE Should Know
- Keynotes
- QCon Plus 2020; GopherCon 2019 and 2021
- Trainer
- GopherCon workshops nearly every year since 2021: Advanced Go, serverless architectures, and agentic systems
Capabilities
AI Systems
Designing and shipping production AI features, from RAG and tool calling to MCP integrations, on Bedrock, Anthropic, and OpenAI, with explicit control flow, guardrails, evaluation, and the same observability and testing as any other service.
Cloud Architecture
Designing and running cloud platforms for global user bases, from containers and serverless functions to event streams, queues, and infrastructure as code, with data handling built for privacy rules like GDPR.
Reliability
Incident command, SRE tooling, and release diagnostics, and instrumenting systems with OpenTelemetry, Honeycomb, and Datadog so teams can see what production is doing.
Distributed Systems
Caching, event propagation, and distributed coordination for high-traffic workloads, plus time-series infrastructure and data stores from PostgreSQL and MySQL to DynamoDB and Redis.
Security & Compliance
Running SOC 2 readiness with automated security controls, vendor tracking, and audit evidence collection, and building GDPR-aware architecture, PII protection across vendors and regions, and TX-RAMP compliance into how products ship.
Full-Stack Engineering
Building across the whole stack, from React and TypeScript front ends to Go and Java services, APIs, data stores, and the pipelines that ship them, with testing and accessibility checks along the way.
Product Engineering
Two decades of taking SaaS products from concept to launch across enterprise software, loyalty and retail, education, and payments, working with product and executive teams to decide what to build and how to deliver it.
Leadership
Leading engineering as a CTO, director, and program lead: hiring and mentoring engineers, setting architecture, testing, and delivery standards, running SOC 2 and cost-control programs, and working with executives on what to build.
Stack
- Languages
- GoTypeScriptJavaScriptPythonRubyJava
- Front End
- ReactTypeScriptViteVitestPlaywrightMaterial UI
- Cloud
- LambdaECS and FargateS3SQSSNSKinesisCognitoCloudFrontBedrock
- Architecture
- Microservicesserverlessevent-driven and distributed systems
- Data
- PostgresMySQLDynamoDBRedistime-series databases
- APIs & Messaging
- RESTGraphQLgRPCMQTT
- Delivery & Operations
- DockerKubernetesCI/CDCloudFormationTerraformOpenTelemetrySRE practice
- AI
- LLM applicationsAI agentsAmazon BedrockOpenAI modelsAnthropic models
On Stage and at Work
Works
Recent talks, workshops, and open source. The full record goes back to 2013.
Agents the Hard Way: Building Agentic Systems in Go
GopherCon US, Seattle
Two half-day workshops on building agentic systems in Go, with the workshop code on GitHub.
CodeA Slice of Go's Future
GopherCon US closing panel
Moderated the closing conversation with members of the Go team.
Main stage and lightning talks
GopherCon US
Hosted opening day, the lightning talks, and the United Go Meetup.
Building with AI
Nexus Louisiana Startup School, Baton Rouge
Workshop for the founders in Nexus Louisiana's Startup School.
Building and Deploying AI Agents with Go
GopherCon US
Full-day workshop, taught alongside Advanced Go for Experienced Programmers.
Go for Experienced Programmers
GopherCon Singapore
Full-day workshop for developers moving to Go from other languages.
Code
Highlights
- Book
97 Things Every SRE Should Know
Contributing author to O'Reilly's collection of essays on site reliability engineering (2020).
- Courses
Hands-On Introduction: Go
Rated 4.9 on LinkedIn Learning. Also Go Standard Library Solutions on Packt and live trainings on O'Reilly, including Go in 3 Weeks.
- Podcast
Go Time
Host of Changelog's weekly Go podcast from 2017 through its final episode in December 2024.
Keynotes at QCon Plus 2020 and GopherCon 2019 and 2021.
Open source
- pantry-agentAn AI agent in Go, built for teaching how agents work end to end.
- mermaid-mcpAn MCP server that generates Mermaid diagrams.
- embedderWorking with embeddings and LLMs from Go.
- gc26buildingagenticsystemsCode for the GopherCon 2026 agentic systems workshop.
- shoutoutsA serverless Go app on AWS used for teaching serverless architecture.
Full public record since 2013 (85 entries)
- Talk, GopherCon USA Slice of Go's Future
- Organizing, GopherCon USEmcee
- Organizing, GopherCon USUnited Go Meetup
- Workshop, GopherCon USAgents the Hard Way: Building Agentic Systems in Go
- Workshop, Nexus Louisiana Startup SchoolBuilding with AI
- Podcast, Cup o' GoGopherCon 2026 dates and location announced
- Workshop, GopherCon USBuilding and Deploying AI Agents with Go
- Workshop, GopherCon USAdvanced Go for Experienced Programmers
- Workshop, GopherCon SingaporeGo for Experienced Programmers
- Podcast, Ardan Labs PodcastStartups, Resilience, and Passion with Johnny Boursiquot
- Podcast, Go TimeThat's Go Time
- Podcast, Go TimePitching Go in 2025
- Podcast, Go TimeCrawl, walk & run your way to usable CLIs in Go
- Podcast, Go TimeWriting a shell in Go
- Podcast, Go TimeAI for Observability
- Podcast, Changelog & FriendsThe indispensable cog
- Podcast, Go Time"Founder Mode" at work when you're not a founder
- Podcast, Go TimeHow I lost my (old) job to AI
- Podcast, Go TimeHome automation with Go
- Podcast, Go TimeOpenAPI & API design
- Podcast, Go TimeWhat's New in Go 1.23
- Organizing, GopherCon USEmcee
- Workshop, GopherCon USGo for Experienced Programmers
- Workshop, GopherCon EUGo for Experienced Programmers
- Podcast, Go TimeWhat if Google lays off the Go team?
- Talk, Stuttgart Go Users GroupRobust HTTP Servers and Clients in Go
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo in 3 Weeks
- Podcast, Go TimeQuestions from a new Go developer
- Podcast, Go TimeJumping into an existing codebase
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo Generics in 2 Hours
- Course, LinkedIn LearningHands-On Go
- Workshop, Pivot Technology SchoolInstructor
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo Generics in 2 Hours
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo in 3 Weeks
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo Generics in 2 Hours
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo in 3 Weeks
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo in 3 Weeks
- Talk, Association for Computing MachineryThe Art of Concurrency in Go
- Podcast, PodRocketGetting Started with Golang
- Keynote, GopherCon 2021Unbounded Concurrency in Go (live with Aaron Schlesinger)
- Talk, Craft ConferenceUnbounded Concurrency (extended version)
- Workshop, GopherCon EUPractical Go Workshop
- Talk, O'ReillyOpen Source Software Superstream Series: Go—Generics, Extensibility, and the Future of Go in Open Source Programming
- Talk, Golang NYCUnbounded Concurrency
- Talk, Lagos GophersLet's build a port scanner with Go
- Keynote, QConThe SRE as a Diplomat
- Talk, National Information Standards Organization (NISO)Privacy and Search Technology
- Podcast, InfoQ PodcastServerless Go and Site Reliability Engineering at Heroku
- Keynote, GoGetCommunity 2020Closing Keynote
- Workshop, O'ReillyGo Next Steps
- Workshop, O'ReillyServerless Go
- Organizing, GopherCon 2020Program committee
- Keynote, GopherCon 2019Closing Keynote
- Workshop, GopherCon 2019Instructor
- Organizing, GopherCon 2019Program committee
- Talk, Columbia AWSServerless Lens on AWS Well Architected Framework
- Talk, Columbia AWSServerless Orchestration on AWS
- Talk, Baltimore Innovation Week's Developer ConferenceGo, FaaS/Serverless Orchestration
- Talk, GopherCon 2018 (Lightning Talks)Go, FaaS/Serverless on AWS
- Workshop, GopherCon 2018Instructor
- Workshop, DevFest MD 2017 ConferenceGetting Started with the Go Programming Language
- Workshop, Code(Her) Conference 2017Building Serverless Slack Bots with AWS Lambda
- Podcast, Go TimeAdventures in VS Code
- Talk, Baltimore Go User GroupPopular Go Libraries
- Talk, Capital Go Language Conference 2017Mine the Debt
- Podcast, Hacker Practice PodcastGuest
- Podcast, Go TimeGo Developer Survey with Steve Francia
- Press, New RelicFeatured
- Talk, Google Developer Group BaltimoreGo, Quickly
- Workshop, Baltimore Go User GroupInteracting with Databases
- Podcast, Go TimeDiscussing Imposter Syndrome (with William Kennedy)
- Workshop, Baltimore Go User GroupBuilding Web Applications in Go
- Workshop, Baltimore Go User GroupBuilding Chat Bots in Golang
- Workshop, Baltimore Go User GroupBuilding Command Line Applications with Go
- Workshop, GoBridge BostonOrganizer
- Press, CodeshipAn Inside Look with Codeship
- Workshop, Code(Her) Conference 2015Programming Fundamentals and Building APIs for Web and Mobile Apps
- Workshop, RailsBridge BostonIntro to Ruby for the Non Programmer
- Workshop, Code(Her) ConferenceBuilding APIs for Web and Mobile Apps
- Talk, Burlington Ruby ConferenceThe Future of Ruby
- Talk, BostonGolangObject Oriented Programming in Golang
- Talk, Launch AcademyBuilding Command Line Tools
- Talk, Launch AcademyThe New Engineer's Survival Guide
- Talk, BostonRBGetting Closure: Ruby Blocks, Procs and Lambdas
- Workshop, BostonRBDefensive Programming in Ruby