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Arden Stone

Resume

(318) 995-4463

Experienced software engineering leader with 11+ years of experience building and scaling enterprise applications, backend systems, and mobile platforms. Proven track record leading engineering initiatives, mentoring developers, owning production-critical release processes, and driving operational excellence across distributed teams. Strong background in backend services, CI/CD automation, release engineering, mobile architecture, and cross-functional technical leadership. Experienced operating within large-scale engineering organizations supporting global HR and payroll platforms.


Skills

Leadership & Engineering Management

Engineering Leadership, Technical Team Leadership, Mentoring & Coaching, Cross-functional Collaboration, Sprint Planning, Release Management, Architecture Reviews, Agile / Scrum Methodologies, Production Incident Management, Operational Risk Management, Stakeholder Communication, Engineering Standards & Best Practices

Backend & Platform Engineering

Node.js, Scala, Akka, C#, .NET / .NET Core, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MariaDB, Distributed Systems, Microservices Architecture, API Design, Query Optimization

Frontend & Mobile

React Native, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, iOS, Android

DevOps & Cloud

CI/CD Pipelines, CircleCI, Fastlane, AWS, S3, Lambda, OpenLens, Kubernetes, Mobile Deployment Automation, Expo Updates, Sentry, Git, Production Release Management


Work Experience

Deel

Senior Backend Engineer

Sep 2025 - August 2026

Lead backend engineering initiatives supporting production-critical global HR and payroll systems within a distributed engineering organization of 7,000+ employees and 1,000+ software engineers.

  • Develop and maintain scalable backend services supporting global HR and payroll operations.
  • Own production code deployments through a multi-stage release process requiring cross-team and engineering leadership approvals.
  • Perform deep impact analysis on production changes to reduce operational and deployment risk within critical business systems.
  • Contribute to root cause analysis efforts and long-term reliability improvements for production-critical platform issues.
  • Drive database optimization initiatives, including indexing and query tuning efforts that reduced critical query latency by approximately 90%.
  • Participate in architecture discussions, migration planning, and operational improvement initiatives across distributed engineering teams.
  • Collaborate closely with engineering leadership, infrastructure, and product teams to ensure reliable and scalable software delivery.
  • Technologies include Node.js, PostgreSQL, OpenLens, and distributed cloud-native tooling.

APS Payroll

Software Engineer III / Lead Mobile Developer

Jan 2019 - Sep 2025

Served as technical lead for the company’s mobile engineering platform supporting 50,000+ users across iOS and Android payroll applications.

  • Led and mentored a team of 4 developers, including junior and mid-level engineers, through architecture guidance, code reviews, sprint execution, and technical coaching.
  • Owned the mobile release lifecycle, managing daily production deployments and serving as the primary technical authority for mobile delivery operations.
  • Architected and implemented automated CI/CD pipelines using Fastlane and CircleCI, significantly improving deployment reliability and release efficiency.
  • Built and maintained deployment automation tooling from the ground up to support scalable mobile release operations.
  • Served as the final technical decision-maker for mobile architecture, deployment patterns, release approvals, and production readiness.
  • Partnered with product owners and cross-functional stakeholders to coordinate sprint planning, delivery timelines, and technical prioritization.
  • Led migration efforts from CodePush to Expo Updates, improving long-term OTA update strategy and deployment maintainability.
  • Helped lead migration from Bugsnag to Sentry, improving production observability and issue triage workflows.
  • Coordinated production incident response efforts and release recovery activities during high-priority deployment events.
  • Established engineering standards, deployment procedures, and operational best practices across the mobile development lifecycle.

Jurisdiction Online (Praeses / Aptean / CentralSquare Technologies)

Software Engineer

Feb 2017 - Dec 2018

  • Developed and maintained enterprise .NET applications within Agile Scrum teams supporting large-scale government and compliance-focused platforms.
  • Contributed to application architecture and integrations using MVC, MediatR, MSMQ, and enterprise service patterns.
  • Participated in continuous integration and deployment initiatives using Git-based workflows and automated deployment tooling.
  • Collaborated with cross-functional engineering teams to enhance platform reliability and delivery efficiency.
  • Developed an IoT proof of concept leveraging Arduino and AWS technologies.

Mediware / Bowman Systems

Software Developer

Mar 2015 - Feb 2017

  • Developed and maintained customer-facing software features using Yii Framework, MariaDB, and MongoDB.
  • Led complex data import and migration projects involving MSSQL, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft Access environments.
  • Supported customer implementations, technical troubleshooting, and product continuity efforts during company acquisition transitions.
  • Partnered with support and implementation teams to resolve production and customer-impacting issues.

Additional Experience

QA Automation Specialist — Bowman Systems

Jan 2014 - Mar 2015

Built and maintained automated regression testing environments and expanded automated test coverage to improve software quality and reduce manual QA effort.

News Producer — Nexstar Broadcasting Group

2012 - 2014

Managed newsroom production operations, coordinated broadcast delivery, and supervised editorial workflows in a fast-paced live production environment.


Community Leadership

Red River .NET User Group — Organizer

2018 - 2020

  • Organized developer meetups and technical presentations for the Shreveport-Bossier software engineering community.
  • Coordinated speakers, sponsorships, and technical learning initiatives.
  • Topics included Kubernetes, Rust, .NET Core, Alexa, and modern web technologies.

Education

LSU at Shreveport

2009 - 2011

Bachelor’s Degree, Electronic Media Journalism

Panola College

2007 - 2009

Associate’s Degree, General Studies