# Shawn McDonald

> Web Developer + Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, CSS + Full Stack, Back-End, Front-End + Software Engineer + Programmer

Location: Berkeley, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/shawnmcdonald

## Work Experience
### Software Engineer @ Philo
Jan 2022 – Present

### Staff Software Engineer @ Wonolo
Jan 2018 – Jan 2022

### Software Developer, Growth / Co-Founder @ Air Cocoa (Berkeley SkyDeck startup)
Jan 2015 – Jan 2018
Growth Hacking consulting for Omlet Arcade App
* Generated over 3 millions downloads by extracting user data from Kibana to create FB lookalike audiences and testing to find best audiences with best CPIs
* Achieved < 1 cent CPIs through influencer campaigns, by scraping foreign language YouTube and Twitter influencers through Google Translate API
* Increased Day 1 retention by 15% through UX improvements in onboarding
* Writeups in major publications by writing a Chrome extension to scrape Google News

Growth Hacking for Air Cocoa media properties, primarily Whisper & Trouble
* Attained 6-figure annual revenue through Rails-based custom analytics platform to identify best performing articles on a per-article and per-country basis
* Acquired > 1 million post engagements per month by creating Node.js and Ruby tools to scrape content and Chrome extensions to identify trending content
* Doubled article output with Node.js and Rails tools to automate content generation
* Developed iOS Swift app and backend Ruby on Rails video platform for ZOMG Sports; garnered millions of video views across all platforms

### Instructor, Web Development @ UC Berkeley Academic Talent Development Program
Jan 2013 – Jan 2018
* Taught high school students how to build complex websites using PHP, JavaScript, MySQL
* Created curriculum for fast-paced six-week summer class, covering one semester of coursework
* Introduced APIs to students to create independent learners

### Software Developer and Marketing PM @ SpoonRocket
Jan 2013 – Jan 2015 | Berkeley
First engineer hired at Y Combinator food delivery startup, responsible for building many core features
* Built API on Ruby on Rails to work with iPhone, Android, and web
* Raised Yelp rating by one-half star by implementing post-order rating prompt
* Battle-tested, deploying hotfixes to keep system up while delivering thousands of meals per day, worked closely with customer service and dispatch to create proper escalation procedures
* Instituted procedures, safer deploy and safer rollbacks, to drastically reduce downtime
* As Marketing PM, worked closely with VP of Marketing to implement BOGO deal, holiday giveaway, and other events to increase users and orders
* PM for coupon system, which drastically reduced engineer time on marketing events
* Saved company thousands of dollars by switching credit card processor with zero downtime

### Software Developer @ Seismic Jade
Jan 2012 – Jan 2013
* Developed personal photo booth / scrapbook app for iPhone
* Set up user tracking to gather data on sticker usage and sharing

### Software Developer @ Hitachi Data Systems
Jan 2009 – Jan 2012
* Improved support efficiency by 3% by developing PHP ticket system used daily by 300+ users
* Computerized the paper data center visitors log by developing PHP application for iPad sign-in kiosk


## Education
### BA in Philosophy
The Johns Hopkins University

### Moreau Catholic High School


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mcdonaldshawn
- Portfolio: http://www.chalkboardmanifesto.com

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Source: https://flows.cv/shawnmcdonald
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/shawnmcdonald/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-11