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Manil Gaouar

Manil Gaouar

Principal Software engineer

Montreal, Quebec, CA
English, French

Background


About

About

Engineer leader with good technical skills and strong desire to learn. Excellent oral and written communicator, good team player, detail oriented and a good sense of responsibilities. Working on solving complex problems being organized, methodic, enthusiastic, self-dependent, versatile and determined.

Work Experience

Work Experience

  • Principal Developer, Novisto

    May, 2026 - Present

    Principal Engineer for Carbon products suits

    • Work on Data Ingestion Pipeline performance improvements, bringing p50 from 24 to 2 minutes and p95 from 9 hours to 11 minutes

    • Work on Data Exports performance from 2 hours to 38 minutes

    • Improve multiple API end points performance bringing up to 168x faster page loading, 5.6 minutes to 2 seconds

    • Tune PostgreSQL settings and upgrading the instance

    • Create an Engineering roadmap with other Principals that will drive initiatives for 18 months

    • Create an Engineering roadmap for Carbon related products and provide a technical vision

    • Plan integration of acquired company (Minimum) into (Novisto), move infrastructure from AWS to GCP/Azure

    • Plan all needed migration to shared services (User management, Auth/Authz, Business Units ...etc.)

    • Plan the refactoring of the data ingestion and use a data lake as primary database

  • Principal Engineer, Arctic Wolf Network

    May, 2025 - May, 20261 year

    Principal Engineer for Security Journey and Cyber JumpStart

    • Plan and Architect the migration of Security Journey products from legacy Tetra Defense infrastructure to ArcticWolf infrastructure

    • Migrate services to Arctic Wolf CI (Bazel+Maven and GitHub Actions) from Tetra Defense CI (Maven and GitLab CI)

    • Migrate CD pipelines from custom GitLab CI actions to AWN CD system

    • Move from isolated Terraform infrastructure to a combination of CloudFormation and Helm Charts

    • Migrate Data from one AWS Account to another using AWS DMS service and some custom scripts

    • Migrate S3 buckets

    • Work with the Product Manager to define the roadmap and help prioritize technical EPICS

    • Plan and provide detailed architecture for technical debt related to user and tenant management

    • Lead the architecture and planning of multiple EPICS across two teams (India + Americas)

    • Act as a technical leader and mentor, introduce architecture patterns like Outbox for dual writes during migration

    • Work with the director and managers in defining priorities and help estimate ROI on many key initiatives

    • Collaborate with the product manager in creating the next generation of our product during long term planning (18 months)

    • Act as a team ambassador with other engineering teams at Arctic Wolf to identify and plan execution on dependencies

    • Work with other Principals to onboard Security Journey teams into new technologies and solutions (ex: DataLake)

  • Principal Engineer, Petal Health

    Jan, 2024 - May, 20251 year 3 months

    Principal Engineer for the Capacity Management line of business and interim for Care Coordination

    • Help define the Petal Platform, from a product point of view, developer and infrastructure

    • Work with the product team on various projects and partnerships

    • Work with the product team on the roadmap for 2025 for my lines of business

    • Mobile strategy, evaluate current situation, asses current choices and help define the next steps

    • Lead the Community of best practices for Software Engineering and Quality

    • Detail the SDLC phases, the input and out put for each phase, alignement with PDLC

    • Put the Technology and Solution Assessment framework to evaluate technology and solutions choices

    • Documentation as Code and Architecture Decision Records

    • Design and architect the new Console 360 providing a new way of building software at Petal, using Microservices, decoupling the third party integrations from the core product, using GraphQL and using HL7 FHIR as an Interoperability data model

    • Introduce various architecture paradagms at Petal: Hexagonal Architecture, GraphQL, decoupled services

    • Evaluate new programming languages usage and drive the change from Rube on Rails to NodeJS, TypeScript and Nest.js

    • Define a way to evaluate teams maturity on software engineering best practices and do the teams assessments

  • Staff Engineer, Ampla

    Jun, 2022 - Nov, 20231 year 5 months

    As a Staff Engineer, I have worked with the core banking team responsible for all the money movement

    • Make our Django application work with Google PubSub

    • Refactor the authorization schema used for the admin interface

    • Increase test coverage for all money movement related code

    • Improve observability by cleaning logs, better alarming management and dashboards

    • Introduce custom metrics in the system and create a template dashboard for their usage

    • Refactor asynchronous tasks and move them to AirFlow

    • Participate in elaborating coding standards

    • Elaborating an incident management strategy and guidance

    • Help product teams in their tasks and make sure sure projects are delivered on time

    • Improve code quality with various refactoring

  • Principal Engineer, Lunchbox

    Nov, 2021 - Jun, 20227 months

    As a Principal Engineer, I am in charge of the architecture of the LunchBox platform, I spent time ReArchitecting the current system and worked on solving various problems that we are facing

    • ReArchitecture the current platform following domain driven design.

    • Come up with a strategy to extract Microservices from the Monolith and asses each phase of the migration.

    • Act as a mentor for many engineers within the organization and help them grow and evolve in their career

    • Estimate and asses different initiatives

    • Redesign the Web Ordering platform to reduce clients onboarding time

    • Design Authentication layer for Microservices using sub-auth-requests and JWT

  • Principal Engineer Java (Forge Data), Autodesk

    Mar, 2021 - Nov, 20217 months

    As a Principal engineer, I worked on the Forge Data as a senior developer providing Java and Spring expertise, I work on the AssetGraph and data persistency layer of the Forge Data platform

    • Improve Observability of the system in general and the Asynchronous services in perticular

    • Setup custom metrics on Prometheur and Grafana to measure services performance and availability

    • Implement AWS Step Function for long running commands

  • Principal Engineer (Web Platform), Autodesk

    Jul, 2019 - Mar, 20211 year 7 months

    As a Principal engineer, I was a technical lead of a team of 6 engineers providing technical guidance over implementations and recommendations to make the platform evolve. I was in direct contact with other teams in Autodesk and key stakeholders to sync and align with business priorities.

    • Build new AEM platform on AEM 6.5 from scratch, Infrastructure as code, Ansible, new code base, new content.

    • Improve quality process by switching automation tests from Selenium to Cypress which led to more engagements from developers and better tests.

    • Optimize overall page load performance by reducing time to interact on main pages from 5 seconds to below 3 seconds.

    • Externalize major AEM components to Micro-frontends and reduce time to develop new features on these components.

    • Improve build pipelines (CI and CD) by simplifying the build process and making sure that service is not disrupted during the deployment.

    • Make the platform meet Autodesk Bronze standards in terms of quality, reliability, resiliency, observability, security and quality.

  • Senior Software Engineer, Current, powered by GE

    Aug, 2018 - Jun, 201910 months

    Current creates lighting solutions for businesses, it has recently created digital solutions that leverage the power of LED and sensors in order to create value for their customer. As a senior software engineer, I am working on the Allsites platform which is an IoT platform that gathers data from sensors and provide analytics for customers. The technology stack is quit complexe, it starts with an Iot gateway (RabbitMQ), a data stream processor for normalizing data (Spark) and storing it on the Big Data platform (Cassandra), aggregation jobs are run on the acquired data to provide analytics. Different microservices (Spring Boot) are used to present data (Polymer and AngularJS) and analysis to the user.

    • Work on different microservices to fix bugs and implement new features. Consume domain data from RabbitMQ and store them into PostgreSQL database and Cassandra.

    • Implement new functionalities on the user interface applications.

    • Migrate the current infrastructure from Predix on Cloud-Foundry to Amazon Web Services on Kubernetes. Dockerizing the services, create Helm charts for orchestrating and packaging the deployments.

  • Senior Software Engineer, Erudite AI

    Jan, 2018 - Jul, 20186 months

    Erudite specializes in education and artificial intelligence. As a software engineer, I had to work on the chat platform that allows two students to interact and help each other. The tutoring session is assisted by an AI engine that will propose hints toward the resolution of the problem. In order to achieve that I was working on a Dropwizard API engin and a React Web and a React Native client.

    • Evaluate multiple solutions for the chat platform and make recommendations based on clear and mesurable criteria.

    • Prototype multiple solution to assess the risks and prepare for the development of the chosen solution.

    • Implement the back-end API using Dropwizard (Java) and Elasticsearch as a database.

    • Implement the client-side application (Web and mobile) using React, React Native, Redux and Thunk Middleware.

    • Put in place a continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD) system using Gitlab-CI.

    • Write Terraform scripts to provision servers on various cloud providers (Infrastructure as Code).

  • Senior Software Engineer, Autodesk

    Sep, 2015 - Jan, 20182 years 4 months

    Most of my work at Autodesk was split between working on AEM and Microservices, Adobe Experience Manager, an enterprise CMS built on top of many advanced Java technologies such as OSGI and JCR, RESTful APIs using Apache Sling. For Microservices, I work on Dropwizard framework built with Jetty as a container, JAX-RS for RESTful API, Jackson for JSON processing, JDBI for database persistence…etc.

    • Design and implement complex AEM components according to specs and design.

    • Work on migration from legacy authoring UI to the new touch UI authoring interface.

    • Implement and optimize AEM search using Lucene indexing and code optimization to process big amount of search hits.

    • Create a RESTful API to feed Microservices with data.

    • Design and implement a single page application written with AngularJS and Bootstrap, the application uses a RESTful service as back-end.

    • Work and deploy Microservices based on Dropwizard on Amazon AWS servers.

    • Participate actively in different CI/CD initiatives by creating deployment scripts, managing Jenkins jobs, validation scripts…etc.

    • Participate to two Hackathons, implemented a dynamic banner using fame.us framework, added functionalities to the team bot (Hubot) to automate some manual tasks that used to take many hours.

  • Software Developer, Integration New Media, Inc. (INM)

    Jul, 2014 - Aug, 20151 year 1 month

    At INM, I worked on multiple CMS with different platforms and technologies. My main experience was with Adobe Experience Manager, an enterprise CMS built on top of many advanced Java technologies such as OSGI and JCR, RESTful APIs using Apache Sling. For the front-end development, I used Twitter Bootstrap (CSS and Javascript), jQuery, LESS/SCSS. I worked on Single Page Applications as well written with AngularJS and Sencha ExtJS

    • Implement component and functionalities according to specifications and mockups.

    • Implement back-end features using Java as OSGI Bundles using Apache Felix as a container and some PHP scripts.

    • Design and implement web application using frameworks such as AngularJS and ExtJS.

    • Work on various document databases such as Elastic Search, Java repositories such Apache Oak and Jackrabbit and indexing document database such as Apache Solr and Apache Lucene.

    • Use Bootstrap, LESS/SCSS to implement the user interface look and feel.

    • Build RESTful Java Servlet using Apache Sling and consume the data with jQuery/ExtJS on the front-end.

  • Integration Specialist, Software Designer, Grass Valley, a Belden Brand

    Oct, 2013 - Apr, 20112 years 6 months

    At Miranda/Grass Valley, I worked mostly on our monitoring and configuration software, first to propose and build monitoring web sites than working on the core to make the product evolve to a more customer oriented software.

    As an integration specialist, I had to design and code various custom solution, gather features requirements, propose best monitoring solutions for our customers and do some on site deployment and training world wide.

    As a software developer, I brought all my technical and business knowledge to the R&D team to build more customer focused products and worked on reducing the amount of product customization needed.

    • Produce new features and bug fixes in the core products using Java, Perl, ShellScripting, JavaScript (jQuery) as programming languages, Ant and Maven as build tools, CVS and Git (Stash) as source control, MySQL, PostgresSQL, orientDB as database engines and Bugzilla, JIRA, Confluence as documentation and bug tracking tools.

    • Produce and deploy custom solutions, bug fixes and core patches using mostly JavaScript, Java, Perl, ShellScripting as programming languages, Ant as build tool, CVS as source control, PostgresSQL as database and Bugzilla, JIRA, Confluence as documentation and bug tracking tools.

    • Gather feature requirements, propose best solutions and orient our customer.

    • Participate in poker planning and tasks break down, SCRUM master certified.

    • Provide daily feedback to managers, product owners and project managers about work progress.

  • Analyste technique, Syst. d’information clinique, Syscor

    Jan, 2010 - Apr, 20111 year 3 months

    Worked there as a software developer on a newly purchased medical file management software to help integrate various clinical information systems into the software (OACIS provided by TELUS).

    • Produce new features and bug fixes to integrate various information systems using Java, JavaScript, HTML and CSS as programming languages, Ant as build tools, SVN as source control, SybaseSQL as database engines and Bugzilla as bug tracking tool.

    • Produce new features and bug fixes in the management console using Java EE (JBoss as a container), Perl, ShellScripting, JavaScript (jQuery and data tables plugin) as programming languages, Ant as build tools, SVN as source control, SybaseSQL as database engines and Bugzilla as bug tracking tool.

  • Telecommunication engineer, Centre de santé et de services sociaux de Laval

    Feb, 2008 - Jan, 20101 year 11 months

    As a telecommunication engineer, I was in charge of deploying and managing a very large project (almost 4 million $ budget) to renew network and phone system across all CSSS de Laval facilities, I was responsible of helping and maintaining the schedule of four technicians and do some network design and switch programming.

    • Network design and switch programming.

    • Project and team schedule management.

  • Software Developper, SolaCom Technologies inc

    Feb, 2006 - Feb, 20082 years

    At SolaCom, I worked on new features and bug fixes for both the distributed voice switch and the configuration software, as my first professional experience, I had the chance to work in a very strict business where reliability is the first constraint that we have to satisfy as human lives were impacted. This served me very well in my career and in the future.

    • Produce new features and bug fixes for the voice switch using Pascal, Perl, DOS as programming languages, Ant as build tools, CVS as source control and Bugzilla as bug tracking tools.

    • Produce new features and bug fixes to the management software using Java as programming languages, Ant as build tools, CVS as source control and Bugzilla as documentation and bug tracking tools.

    • Provide UBoot image for new Motorola board with RISC CPU, Pascal to C code conversion.

Skills

Skills

  • Programming Languages

    Java

    GoLang

    Javascript

    Python

    SQL

    Ruby

  • AI & LLMs

    CoPilot

    Claude

    Google Gemini

    AI Agents

    Model Context Protocol (MCP)

  • Cloud technologies & DevOps

    AWS

    Docker

    Docker Compose

    Kubernetes

    Helm

    GitLab CI

    GitHub Actions

    Jenkins

  • Databases

    PostgreSQL

    MySQL

    ElasticSearch

    NoSQL/JCR

    Redis

    Cassandra

  • Software Project Management

    JIRA

  • Operating Systems

    Linux

    Windows

    OSX

Education

Education

  • Computer engineer, Bac Ing, Polytechnique Montréal

    Dec, 1999 - Dec, 2005

  • Ecole d’hiver en apprentissage profond 2018, 2018 winter school of deep learning, , Université de Montréal

    Dec, 2018 - Dec, 2018

Certificates

Certificates

Volunteer Work

Volunteer Work

  • Web master, Les Amis de la musique andalouse de Montreal

    Nov, 2009 - Dec, 2017

    Website design and development using PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS as markup and programming languages, MySQL as a database, moving the site to WordPress platform right now, installed SMF forums for media sharing and social interaction, managing the Facebook page, the Tweeter account and the Google+ account.

References

References

  • Jen Martinsen @ Arctic Wolf

    I have had the pleasure of working with Manil, and he is an outstanding Principal Engineer whose impact goes well beyond his technical expertise. He has a rare ability to take highly complex technical problems and explain them with clarity and ease to non‑technical audiences, building trust and shared understanding across teams.
    Manil is thoughtful and deliberate in how he approaches problem‑solving. He consistently asks probing, insightful questions, especially in partnership with product, to ensure the technical foundation is sound, scalable, and capable of supporting the real‑world use cases it needs to solve. His mindset helps teams avoid short‑term fixes and instead design solutions that hold up over time.
    Beyond his technical leadership, Manil is simply a joy to work with. He is highly communicative, collaborative, and generous with his time and knowledge. He elevates discussions, supports his teammates, and brings a positive, steady presence to the team that makes everyone better.
    An overall great person and a wonderful teammate, Manil is exactly the kind of Principal Engineer and partner you want working on complex, high‑impact problems. I recommend him wholeheartedly and would gladly work with him again.

  • Samuel Rousseau-Boissonneault @ Petal

    I've worked closely with Manil and can confidently say he's been a great colleague. His communication stands out and he's talented for transforming complex architectural concepts into clear, insightful diagrams that everyone can understand. During architecture discussions, Manil's contributions are always thoughtful and valuable. He's always ready to take leadership when needed, guiding meetings without being asked explicitly. He's transparent, never hesitate to raise concerns when challenges arise, yet always focuses on finding solutions. Where others see confusion, he finds pathways to clarity, transforming vague requirements into structured approaches with seemingly effortless precision.

  • Rizwan Intwala @ Autodesk

    He is an unstoppable force to be reckon with. If someone said, it couldn't be done, he would find a way to get it done.
    As someone who was paired off to work with him when he first joined Autodesk, I noticed and admired the way Manil worked. His submission of new feature work submitted produced very little turn around with bug defects , not only from the new feature aspect but also when it came to dependencies to other features.
    He truly embraced working in an agile environment, we ended working really well from the start, I would write preliminary QA Acceptance Test for areas in scope based on requirements gathered for the new feature in question and he would review it while taking them into consideration while implementing it. This practice helped us both in being aware of expectations and creating a workflow where we had less failures on submitted work and we delivered in shorter timeline by bringing a User story/feature to closure while meeting definition of done.
    He with other colleagues impressed the entire Web Platform Engineering department with their Hackathon project related to AEM dispenser proposal that would be the planted seed desperately needed as a prelude to working toward CI/CD dream along with making environment creations must simpler for all sprint squads working with heavy contents.
    He is highly adaptable, organized and a great team communicator. I can see him easily taking on any challenges presented to him in a structured manner. He is an asset to any team he is part of and brings a lot of industry experiences that can help teams do a focused right approach from the start.