Software Developer & Educator

Julian Nadeau

Staff-level developer. Educator and speaker. Building systems that scale and improving developer productivity.

Talks, teaching & projects

DCS Industry Day

Event • 2021-2023

DCS Industry Day

Founded and organized the "Department of Computer Science Industry Day". We're bringing in developers, data scientists, product managers, recruiters and other leading professionals from the industry to help students find jobs, internships, and network.

CSC491/2600 Instructor

Teaching • 2019-2023

CSC491/2600 Instructor

University of Toronto’s Capstone Design Course through the Department of Computer Science Innovation Lab (DCSIL). This course exposes students to the core technologies, ideas, and processes in developing a startup.

Avoiding Cognitive Overload

Public Speaking • 2019

Avoiding Cognitive Overload

This is a shortened, re-written talk from my RubyKaigi 2018 talk. This presentation focused on testing, proper error messages, and JIT-based education. Delivered at DevOps TO 2019.

Avoiding Cognitive Overload

Public Speaking • 2018

Avoiding Cognitive Overload

A presentation on cognitive burdens of developers and strategies to mitigate these concerns, primarily in Ruby. Delivered at RubyKaigi 2018 in Sendai, Japan

Git Issues at Scale

Public Speaking • 2018

Git Issues at Scale

A presentation on issues experienced in large git repoistories, particularly around cloning, pulling, and fetching. Delivered at GitHub Constellation 2018 in Toronto, Canada.

Busting Performance Bottlenecks

Public Speaking • 2017

Busting Performance Bottlenecks

A presentation on decreasing Ruby Boot time by 60% and work in the Bundler project. Delivered at RubyKaigi 2017 in Hiroshima, Japan

Code For Kids

Not-For-Profit • 2013-2015

Code For Kids

Code For Kids was a Not For Profit (NFP) corporation that aimed to teach children aged 7-13 the basics of coding, technology and design. Founder 2013-2015.

Blog posts

github.blog • January 25, 2021

Improving how we deploy GitHub

As GitHub doubled it’s developer head count, tooling that worked for us no longer functioned in the same capacity. We aimed to improve the de...

dev.to • Apr 26, 2019

Graphing 1000 repositories to identify key project types

What do you do when you need to identify a set of repos to test some big changes against, but you have a thousand to choose from? Answer: Bre...

dev.to • Apr 18, 2019

The common edge case all dependency managers miss

Most dependency managers miss a very common "edge case" that impacts all developers. Let's look at why this is the case and a solution to add...

Photo by Rob Wingate on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/photos/code-is-displayed-on-a-computer-monitor-zUrEj_OwLQM)

devproductivity.github.io • January 14, 2018

The Future of Developer Environments at Shopify

In the previous posts we talked about our past experiences with Artisinal Systems, Boxen, and Vagrant as well as our current system using Rai...

devproductivity.github.io • January 14, 2018

Current Developer Environments at Shopify

In a previous post, we discussed the systems we have had throughout the history of Shopify. In this follow up post we'll talk about the syste...

Photo by David Schultz on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/photos/black-flat-screen-computer-monitor-turned-on-near-blue-and-white-sky-SrewPUfo2c0)

devproductivity.github.io • January 14, 2018

Historical Developer Environments at Shopify

Development operations at Shopify has a long history that winds its way through various systems, technologies, and iterations. Over the cours...

medium.com • Dec 27, 2016

Secrets Management in iOS Applications

Secrets in iOS applications can be a bit of an issue, especially when you intend to make a project public. The problem here is that there is ...

shopify.engineering • June 15, 2016

How to Set Up Your Own Mobile CI System

Building a Dynamic Mobile CI System." Over the past few years the mobile development community has seen a dramatic shift towards the use...

medium.com • Apr 11, 2016

Homebrew, Ruby, and Gems

This article assumes you’ve read the main article already. As well as the provisioning a Mac article.By now, you have Mac OS X all setup and ...

medium.com • Apr 10, 2016

Xcode, iOS SDKs, and iOS Simulators for CI Systems

This article assumes you’ve read the main article already.Given that Xcode is required for iOS, both Xcode and iOS SDKs are important for an ...

medium.com • Apr 10, 2016

Provisioning a Mac OS X system for iOS CI

Make sure you take a look at the intro article first.Two ground rules — you must legally use Apple-branded hardware. This is a requirement in...