Darragh ORiordan

Hire me

Head of Engineering with 15+ years experience solving problems for e-commerce companies, high-growth startups, hardware companies and fintechs. I build products, reduce costs, improve security, and accelerate engineering teams.

Results That Matter

Cost Reduction & Infrastructure

  • 30% reduction in AWS costs, 75% reduction in Cloudflare costs, 25% reduction in managed database costs.
  • Led engineering for SOC2 certification including full platform architecture documentation, pen testing, and rectification.
  • Migrated core platform infra to Terraform, including management of 68 GitHub repos.
  • Optimized VPC and NAT setup, improving security and handling bursts of 100K+ NAT connections.

Performance & Modernisation

  • Took app page load from ~50 seconds to ~4.5s, a 10x improvement in user experience.
  • Led upgrade of ~8 customer-facing APIs & apps from unsupported Node/React/Webpack to modern versions.
  • Increased throughput of Big 4 Bank engineering team by 33% with no increase in defects.
  • Deploy process automation across 12 GitHub projects, saving ~2 developer hours per deployment.

Security & Compliance

  • 0 defect penetration test results for Big 4 Bank, ASIC, ATO and Australian Privacy Principal audits.
  • 100s of critical issues resolved for client's IoT Docker+NodeJS application in security audit.
  • Secured MongoDB by moving instances off the public internet to private VPC links.
  • Modernised CI/CD pipelines from Jenkins to GitHub Actions, improving security and consistency.
  • Added Renovate to platform, automating dependency management and preventing npm supply chain attacks.

Architecture & Product

  • Designed cloud architecture and devops for fintech platform that helped start 200+ Australian businesses.
  • Built a resilient system that saved 1000's of signups during a SendGrid outage on banking client's launch.
  • Reverse engineered an undocumented medical API, enabling client to land large government contract.
  • Drove 70-100% integration test coverage for team projects resulting in safe last minute changes to critical projects.

Leadership & Mentorship

  • Interviewed globally and built team of 5, mix of senior and junior, with high retention.
  • Maintained eNPS of 9.8 through Covid-19 remote work.
  • Weekly mentoring, coaching new career engineers as confident, client-facing consultants.
  • Created interview, onboarding, and risk documentation frameworks.

Community Impact

  • Wrote and maintain popular NestJS ESLint plugin. ~50k downloads/week, ~2M downloads total.
  • Helped ~170k+ developers build better products with my engineering articles.
  • 8k players of my generative AI game using Node.js, React, ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion.

My full resume is available on LinkedIn.

I can help you:

My Contact Details

Infrastructure & Cost Reduction

Cloud costs can spiral quickly. I've delivered 30% AWS cost reductions, 75% Cloudflare savings, and 25% managed database cost reductions through infrastructure optimisation, right-sizing, and better architecture.

I migrate infrastructure to Terraform for reproducibility and auditability. I've managed Terraform configurations for 68+ GitHub repos and modernised legacy Jenkins pipelines to GitHub Actions.

Example: At Sked Social I optimized VPC and NAT configurations to handle bursts of 100K+ NAT connections while improving security posture and reducing costs.

Deploy higher quality code more often

I'm a big believer in the power of automation to improve the quality of software and the lives of developers. The tools available now make it possible to deploy code to production many times a day with confidence.

I can work with you to implement the culture and tools to support deploying code safely on Friday! Even in a regulated industry. These practices are backed up with research from Google (DORA) and Microsoft (SPACE).

Example: I increased the throughput of a FinTech team of 8 engineers from 1 release every 2 months, to 3-4 releases per day. This resulted in 30% more tickets shipped per month with no increase in defects.

You can see the dramatic change in number of PRs deployed in the graph below.

Graph of deployments and PRs showing 30% increase in shipped PRs when process changes were made
30% more tickets shipped, with no increase in defects

Modernise Your Platform

Legacy codebases slow down development, create security risks, and make it harder to leverage AI tools. I specialise in modernising platforms while keeping them running.

Example: I took an app from ~50 second page loads to ~4.5 seconds, a 10x improvement. I've led upgrades of 8+ customer-facing APIs and apps from unsupported Node/React/Webpack to modern versions.

I add TypeScript, Tailwind, react-query and other tools that make your apps more AI-friendly for faster development. I've introduced monorepo setups that resolve deployment issues and improve collaboration.

This took 1 month and reduced the number of security vulnerabilities in NPM libraries from 183 to 0 and docker image vulnerabilities from 161 to 0.

Removed all docker image vulnerabilities
Image of docker audit showing vulnerabilities before and after

Finally, I introduced Renovate to the client's infrastructure to permanently automate all package updates for that application so they could keep their app secure automatically, while focusing on building new features.

If you're upgrading CRA to Vite, Jest to Vitest, Gatsby to NextJS. I can help you because I've done it all before.

My Contact Details

Security & Compliance

I've led engineering for SOC2 certification, including full platform architecture documentation, penetration testing coordination, and rectification work.

My security track record includes 0 defect penetration test results for Big 4 Banks, ASIC, ATO, and Australian Privacy Principal audits. I've resolved 100s of critical security issues in Docker+NodeJS applications.

I secure infrastructure by moving databases off public internet to private VPC links, implementing proper network isolation, and automating security updates. I add Renovate to prevent npm supply chain attacks and ensure dependencies stay current.

NodeJS or NextJS Workshops

If you need to quickly get a team of developers building high quality production code with Node, NestJS or NextJS I can run a workshop for you. A workshop would typically take 2-3 days and would cover a broad range of practical topics.

I can tailor the workshop to your needs and your team's experience level if that makes more sense for your situation.

You can see the type of content I would cover over at my NodeJS app accelerator Miller Start.

Workshops can be run in person or remotely. A group of 5 - 8 developers is ideal.

An image of whiteboard activity from a workshopMy Contact Details

Fractional Head of Engineering

Need experienced technical leadership but not ready for a full-time hire? I can provide part-time Head of Engineering services to growing teams.

I bring process improvements, mentorship, and technical direction. I've maintained an eNPS of 9.8 through remote work, built and retained high-performing teams, and coached junior engineers into confident, client-facing consultants.

I create interview, onboarding, and risk documentation frameworks. I establish architecture diagrams and technical standards. I run weekly mentoring sessions to drive technical growth.

With 15+ years experience across Big 4 Banks, government, and startups, I can help you scale your engineering organisation while avoiding common pitfalls.

Azure Solution Architect Expert certified with extensive AWS experience. I've worked in heavily regulated industries and can help with compliance and security needs.