Daniela Baron
Senior Rails Developer @Practice Better
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WORK HISTORY
Senior Rails Developer @Practice Better
Toronto, ON, CA
First developer hired after acquisition to maintain and evolve That Clean Life, a nutrition and meal planning SaaS for health practitioners. Working with Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Redis, Heroku, Docker, Datadog, Stripe, and Amplitude.Leading the Global Search Refresh (8 months, 4 epics, 52 tickets): Replaced basic SQL ILIKE with PostgreSQL full-text search using custom architecture. Built SearchQuery class bypassing pg_search gem\'s performance issues. Search usage improved >80% vs 20% target. Added tag-based filtering with collapsible sidebar, subscription gating, Amplitude analytics, and custom span tags for enhanced observability in Datadog.Driving architectural shift from legacy Backbone/Marionette SPA to hybrid server-rendered Rails. Converted navigation to ERB + Stimulus, established patterns for new features using an innovative hybrid of Marionette view shells loading Rails server-rendered HTML, allowing the team to move forward with modern Rails development without the cost of a full rewrite.Executing zero-downtime platform upgrades: Ruby 2.7→3.2, Rails 6.1→7.2, Heroku stack 20→22. Integrated Datadog APM from scratch for observability. Remediated security and revenue gaps: Stripe webhook verification, session timeout via ActionCable, VPN-restricted admin routes, and overhauled payment failure emails from 2 generic to 6 plan-specific workflows, to increase retention with accurate data retention messaging.Transforming developer experience: overhauled onboarding docs, simplified Docker setup, enforced Rubocop in CI, improved seed data and CI reliability. Proactively investigated Heroku capacity before Black Friday, implemented horizontal scaling to prevent memory issues during the promotion.
EDUCATION
Ryerson University
C# .NET Developer
University of Toronto
B.Sc. (Hons.), Computer Science, Economics
SKILLS
ABOUT DANIELA BARON
I\'m a senior software engineer with extensive experience building high-impact solutions for product, project, and SaaS companies. I specialize in turning complex technical challenges into working software that scales.Currently, I\'m at Practice Better working on That Clean Life, a nutrition and meal planning SaaS for health practitioners. I led an 8-month Global Search Refresh that replaced basic SQL pattern matching with PostgreSQL full-text search, improving usage by over 80%. I\'m driving the architectural shift from a legacy Backbone/Marionette SPA to modern full-stack Rails, and transforming developer experience through better documentation, automated testing, and CI improvements.My job is to deliver working, maintainable software. I value readability over cleverness, meaningful tests over verifying implementation details, and pragmatic performance tuning over premature optimization. I embrace AI-assisted development as a force multiplier — my current employer has a \"no code\" mandate where 100% of our code is AI-generated. I work deliberately with AI, prioritizing upfront analysis and planning, and breaking work into small incremental steps to improve outcomes before rushing to code.I blog about Rails, PostgreSQL, Docker, testing, and software engineering at https://danielabaron.me/(3K+ monthly visits, featured in Ruby Weekly, Short Ruby Newsletter, Women on Rails, and Rails Upgrade News). I\'ve also contributed to Ruby for Good\'s Human Essentials project.I don\'t do leetcode-style interviews or scrum ceremonies. Rather, I offer many years of public work as evidence — GitHub repos since 2013, 100+ technical blog posts, and volunteer contributions. I have a track record of delivering on difficult technical challenges and making teams more effective. If you\'re looking for someone who gets things done and makes teams better, let\'s connect.
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