Staff Software Engineer
Bryan Johnson
Writing about distributed systems, performance engineering, and the tradeoffs that only show up at production scale.
Test Triangle The test triangle is a useful mental model, but it's taught in a way that leads you astray. Valgrind A practical walkthrough of Valgrind's most useful tools — Memcheck, Callgrind, and when to reach for each one. ReplicaDB Notes on where ReplicaDB fits, what it gets right, and where a heavier replication tool is still the better call.
Encrypted Search Platform Took homomorphic encryption research from academic prototype to production-grade distributed system. Owned the full engineering lifecycle — architecture, C++ performance tuning, encrypted workloads on Spark, CI/CD, observability. Fancy Configuration Library A configuration library built around developer ergonomics and system reliability. Reads properties, JSON, or YAML and maps them onto annotated Java interfaces via dynamic proxies — no concrete implementations required. Maven Installer Plugin A Maven plugin that unifies RPM and DEB package configuration into a single format. Single Maven config generates both RPM and DEB installers. Pattern of Life Analysis System GPS-based behavioral analytics that identified movement habits and anomalies over time. The algorithm was novel enough to patent. Real-Time Situational Awareness Platform Full-stack distributed platform for real-time operational awareness — distributed backend, browser-based SPAs, mobile clients, and automated on-prem deployments. License & Update Server Built end to end for the core product. Covered license registration, customer system enrollment, and automatic software update delivery. Cross-Platform Mobile Communication iOS and Android communication platform for users connected to the Real-Time Situational Awareness Platform. Included an emergency signaling feature. Radar Simulation Platform Radar simulation work at JHU Applied Physics Lab. Implemented in Java with performance-critical components in C++ via JNI.
Staff software engineer focused on distributed systems, performance, and healthy engineering cultures.