Blake Prudhomme

Senior Software Engineer · Ruby on Rails · 10+ years remote

I build software the way I think — deliberately. Over a decade of remote Rails work, I've learned that the hardest problems aren't technical, they're architectural: the decisions made at 2am under deadline pressure that you're still living with three years later. I've been the first engineer, the technical lead, and the quiet force keeping production stable while the company scaled. I care about systems that last, teams that trust each other, and code that doesn't need a hero to maintain.

Experience

Founding Engineer

2019 – 2025

Salt Insure · Remote

Role concluded as company transitioned from product-building to growth and sales phase

First engineering hire. Built a multi-tenant SaaS insurance platform from greenfield to ~$1M ARR with a 3-person team, on Rails 8 / Ruby 3.4, supporting complex rules-driven workflows and sensitive customer data.

  • · Designed and implemented core Rails applications and APIs for quoting, underwriting, and policy management, scaling to 250,000+ submissions.
  • · Designed partner API access around Doorkeeper OAuth2 with Pundit authorization and Devise two-factor authentication.
  • · Integrated Stripe payments with webhook handling, Twilio for communications, Algolia for search, and Zapier for workflow automation.
  • · Owned insurance carrier integrations, building SOAP APIs with Nokogiri XML construction for industry data exchange.
  • · Chose ViewComponent and Hotwire/Turbo for the frontend architecture, keeping UI logic testable and out of the views.
  • · Designed PDF generation pipelines with Prawn for policy documents and compliance artifacts.
  • · Processed background workflows with Sidekiq Pro and monitored production health with Sentry.
  • · Established code review, automated testing, and CI/CD practices that the team relied on through years of production deploys.

Contract Software Engineer

2021

Local Sports Network (LSN) · Remote

Brought in to build the e-commerce and athletic combines features for a local sports community platform with 142 database tables and 59 models.

  • · Integrated Solidus e-commerce engine for a fan apparel store with community points wallet and Stripe for subscription management.
  • · Built the combines system with CSV import pipelines, school/athlete matching, evaluation ranking, and per-row database transactions.
  • · Structured business logic with an operations pattern using Dry Monads so every action returned an explicit success or failure.

Contract Software Engineer

2018 – 2019

Gateway Church · Remote

gatewaypeople.com — Church community platform with multi-site content management.

  • · Built GraphQL APIs with batched data loading for a mobile app and web frontend.
  • · Integrated GetStream for activity feed and notification delivery across the community platform.
  • · Integrated Contentful CMS for structured content delivery across multiple ministry sites.
  • · Integrated Algolia for real-time content search and SAML SSO for single sign-on across ministry applications.
  • · Applied the command pattern (Imperator) to structure complex business logic with clear boundaries.
  • · Mentored a PHP developer transitioning to Ruby and onboarded a junior developer with no prior experience.

Rails Developer

2015 – 2018

Watchman Monitoring · Remote

Contributed to a high-throughput Rails SaaS monitoring platform processing 100k+ events per hour across a multi-tenant, subdomain-based architecture with 68 database tables.

  • · Built and maintained Grape APIs (v2.2, v2.5) for third-party integrations and internal tooling.
  • · Optimized Sidekiq Pro worker scheduling for reliable event processing pipelines.
  • · Developed ConnectWise (REST) and Autotask (SOAP) integrations for MSP professional services automation.
  • · Integrated Chargify for subscription billing, invoicing, and trial management.
  • · Contributed improvements to the official Chargify Ruby client library to address integration edge cases and improve production reliability.
  • · Instrumented performance monitoring with Scout APM and structured logging with Lograge.

Web Developer

2014 – 2015

Three Sixty Eight · Baton Rouge, LA

  • · Developed custom web applications and CMS extensions across WordPress, Shopify, and Magento.
  • · Transitioned into backend development with Ruby on Rails, launching a long-term career in the framework.

Personal Projects

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cssremedy-rails — Published Ruby gem packaging Mozilla's CSS Remedy for the Rails asset pipeline.

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Bayou Ballers — Rails scoring and standings app with game scheduling, playoff bracket generation, and ActionCable real-time updates.

Education

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TreeHouse Fullstack Development — 2013

·

Healing Place School of Ministry — 2005–2008

Leadership Beyond the Keyboard

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Haiti: Led volunteer teams in post-earthquake rebuilding, coordinating logistics and cross-cultural collaboration.

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Honduras: Directed a construction team to replace a hospital roof.

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Brazil (Amazon Region): Led a team building community infrastructure in the remote Amazon jungle.

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Southern Africa: Participated in humanitarian outreach across South Africa, Mozambique, and Eswatini.

·

Youth Football: 15+ seasons coaching flag football — seven league championships, One National Championship, Coach of the Year (2025), and volunteer Coaching Director mentoring coaches and organizing training programs and schedules.

Technical Skills

Languages

Ruby SQL JavaScript TypeScript

Frameworks

Ruby on Rails (5–8) Hotwire/Turbo Tailwind Stimulus Grape APIs GraphQL

Architecture

Multi-tenant SaaS Service Objects Dry Monads ViewComponent RESTful + SOAP APIs

Databases

PostgreSQL MySQL Schema Design Query Optimization Full-text Search

Integrations

Stripe OAuth2/Doorkeeper Twilio Algolia Zapier GetStream Chargify

Infrastructure

Heroku AWS Docker Sidekiq Redis ActionCable

Testing & Quality

RSpec Minitest Capybara Factory Bot CI/CD (GitHub Actions, CircleCI)

AI Tooling

Cursor Claude AI-assisted Workflows