Jon Apgar

Staff Software Engineer

I’m a Staff Software Engineer passionate about using AI to solve real-world problems—whether it’s enhancing product discovery or creating safer online communities. Throughout my career, I’ve led teams to build robust, scalable systems that are both reliable and adaptable. I value open collaboration, clear communication, and solutions that stand up to real-world demands.

Experience

Technical Lead

GroupBy Inc. | Mar 2023 – Present | Remote

  • Designed and delivered AI powered ecommerce merchandising tool Enrich AI, improving product discoverability for millions of SKUs for major retailers worldwide.
  • Building cutting-edge ML-powered workflows and product integrations
  • Architecting high-performance distributed systems on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
  • Technologies: GCP, Python, Ray, GraphQL, React, MongoDB, Java
Senior Software Engineer

Microsoft | Dec 2021 – Mar 2023 | Remote

  • Designed and implemented trust and safety systems for the Xbox ecosystem.
  • Led a team focused on building human-in-the-loop automated community moderation tools.
  • Technologies: Azure, Kubernetes, Kafka, Snowflake
Senior Software Developer

Two Hat | Oct 2020 – Dec 2021 | Remote

  • Designed and developed federated GraphQL API for the Community Sift moderation and policy management platform.
  • Led development of microfrontends, design system, and legacy integrations.
  • Technologies: AWS, Typescript, PostgreSQL, Angular
Lead Developer

Datablocks Inc. | Sep 2013 – Apr 2020 | Ontario, Canada

  • Led development for web applications for online advertisers and publishers.
  • Developed large-scale bot detection tools to ensure compliance and prevent fraud.
  • Created Scout, an automated analysis tool for detecting malicious advertising.
  • Technologies: Bare metal, Elasticsearch, Hadoop, Puppeteer
Multimedia Developer

CAE | Sep 2011 – Oct 2013 | Halifax, Canada

  • Led development for e-learning products for the aviation industry.
  • Developed web-based 3D simulations, interactive educational content, and gamified learning modules.
  • Collaborated with aerospace engineers to translate technical knowledge into training applications.
  • Technologies: Unity 3D, Actionscript

Education

Bachelor of Science in Physical Anthropology

University of Toronto | Graduation Year: 2008

Side Projects

Page Xray - Fou Analytics | 2020

Developed a tool for publishers and advertisers to analyze ad tech and tracking requests on web pages, leveraging automated web scraping and analytics.

  • Technologies: Node.js, Puppeteer, React
Aviscan | 2020

Developed an application that digitizes and organizes handwritten pilot logbooks using OCR and structured data extraction.

  • Technologies: React Native, Expo, Amazon Textract

Interests

Mountain Biking, Music, Astronomy, and Cooking.