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Shane Israel

Full Stack Engineer · Engineering Lead · Founding Engineer

I design and build full-stack web applications from the ground up, from architecting production infrastructure to crafting polished user experiences. I thrive as an early-stage engineer where ownership and impact are limitless.

Shane Israel
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01.

About Me

Hey! I'm Shane, a full stack engineer based in the United States with over a decade of professional experience turning ideas into production-grade software.

I got my start building internal tooling and loan processing systems at SoFi, where I learned how impactful well-crafted developer tools can be for an entire engineering organization. That early experience set the tone for my career: I love solving real problems with clean, maintainable software.

Over the years I've gravitated toward founding-engineer roles where I can own the full lifecycle of a product, from designing the database schema and cloud infrastructure to shipping the polished front-end that users touch. I have a particular fondness for React, Node.js, and getting infrastructure right the first time.

When I'm not writing code professionally, I'm usually working on open source projects, exploring new technologies, or gaming. I believe great software comes from genuine curiosity and a healthy obsession with the details.

10+
Years of Experience
4
Companies & Startups
6+
Open Source Projects
2x
Founding Engineer

What I bring to a team

  • Full ownership from architecture to deployment
  • Strong opinions on DX, code quality & maintainability
  • Experience mentoring and growing junior engineers
  • Comfortable bridging product, design & engineering
  • Track record of shipping at speed without cutting corners
02.

Experience

Ascension

Founding Engineer

Current
Ascension Full-time · Remote Jan 2025 – Present
  • Designed and built the full web application from the ground up using React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, and TailwindCSS.
  • Implemented flexible user authentication supporting standard sessions, Okta SSO, and 2FA via Twilio SMS or authenticator app.
  • Built and manages CI/CD pipelines enabling high-availability deployments across multiple environments with minimal downtime.
  • Architected and maintains the full production infrastructure on DigitalOcean, including managed databases, S3 Spaces, App Platform, and Redis clusters.
  • Built a PDF generation and templating system using Anvil, allowing customers to produce fully customized documents on demand.
  • Leads technical interviews for engineering candidates and drives SOC2 compliance efforts through Vanta.
React Node.js PostgreSQL TailwindCSS Digital Ocean Okta SSO SOC2 / Vanta
Themis

Senior Software Engineer

Themis Full-time · Remote Jan 2024 – Sep 2024
  • Identified and resolved performance bottlenecks across the React front-end, significantly improving application responsiveness.
  • Translated Figma designs into polished, production-ready UI components in close collaboration with the product and design teams.
  • Partnered with the product team to scope, develop, and ship customer-requested features on a rapid release cadence.
  • Mentored junior engineers on React patterns, component architecture, and design-to-code workflows in Figma.
React TypeScript Figma Mentorship
Stage

Founding Engineer

Stage Full-time · Remote Nov 2021 – Dec 2023
  • Built and maintained multi-environment infrastructure (production, staging, and test) for Dockerized services using Kubernetes, Nginx, and Doppler for secrets management.
  • Authored and maintained GitHub Actions CI/CD workflows covering container builds, image publishing, environment deployments, merge request validation, and automated database migrations.
  • Developed Stage's React front-end in close collaboration with UI/UX designers and backend engineers, owning components from design handoff through to production.
  • Contributed backend features as needed, including Kotlin API controllers and PostgreSQL schema changes.
React Kubernetes Docker CI/CD Kotlin PostgreSQL
SoFi

SoFi

6 yrs 7 mos
Helena, Montana
Senior Software Engineer Jun 2018 – Nov 2021 · 3 yrs 6 mos
  • Led the design and development of an internal automation platform that enabled business teams to configure, send, and receive loan origination files, NACHA files, and third-party data transfers. Outbound files were automatically encrypted, while inbound files were processed through a flexible job and script pipeline that employees could define themselves — functioning as a full internal SaaS product for file exchange and processing.
  • Designed and developed Kraken, an internal tool that automatically provisions AWS instances running the company's full software stack for development and QA environments.
  • Kraken was adopted org-wide, becoming the standard environment provisioning solution across the entire engineering organization.
  • Gathered feedback from engineering and business teams to identify gaps and build targeted improvements to internal automated systems.
  • Maintained and iterated on an internal automated third-party integration system and its companion web application.
Software Engineer May 2015 – Jun 2018 · 3 yrs 2 mos
  • Maintained internal loan application processing software and customer-facing tools for online application creation.
  • Designed and developed a centralized password and database access control system that was adopted company-wide as the standard for user permission management.
  • Built a variety of internal tooling web applications on request from engineering teams, streamlining day-to-day workflows and reducing manual overhead.
  • Designed and developed an automated Docker and RunDeck pipeline to ingest and deliver thousands of daily NACHA files, cash distribution files, and loan servicing records to and from third-party systems.
  • Built a companion web UI for the pipeline featuring real-time error reporting, job status visibility, and one-click manual retries.
AWS Docker RunDeck Internal Tooling Access Control
03.

Personal Projects

Fireshare

1.2K 380K+

Self-hosted video sharing service. Share your gaming clips, screen recordings, and other videos with unique links. No accounts required for viewers.

React Python Docker Self-hosted

Snapsmaps

45 2K+

A photo sharing platform where users can tag photos to real-world map locations, creating a visual, geo-tagged record of moments and places.

React Node.js Maps API

Animetrics

Track and visualize your anime watching habits with detailed stats and metrics. See your history, favorite genres, and watch-time breakdowns in one place.

React Node.js Analytics

Apollo

A personal automation and workflow tooling project that brings together utilities that make day-to-day development tasks faster and more reliable.

Automation Tooling

Coop Friend Finder

A matchmaking tool for gamers looking for co-op partners. Browse and connect with others who want to play the same games, because co-op is always better with friends.

Web App Gaming

Snipping Tool++

An enhanced Windows screenshot utility extending the built-in Snipping Tool with instant clipboard uploads, annotation, and streamlined sharing workflows.

C# Windows Desktop App
04.

Skills

Frontend

React.js JavaScript TypeScript TailwindCSS Figma

Backend

Node.js PostgreSQL Redis TypeORM Sequelize

Infrastructure & DevOps

Docker Kubernetes CI/CD Pipelines Full Infra Mgmt Git

Core Proficiencies

React / Frontend 95%
Node.js / Backend 92%
TypeScript 90%
Infrastructure & DevOps 88%
Database Design 85%
Team Leadership 82%
05.

Get In Touch

Whether you have a role to discuss, a project idea to explore, or just want to connect, my inbox is always open. I'll do my best to get back to you promptly.