Hey there,
I am Derek

I am a versatile young developer, exploring endless possibilities in the world of technology.

7years experience

Derek Blaney

My Story

My passion for coding initially began with a naive interest for building websites combined with an endless desire of knowledge. This exploration led me to applying this newfound knowledge to other spheres of my life. Namely, I began to develop an interest for creating game servers in Java for the game that had captivated my childhood: Minecraft. These servers gained popularity, reaching peaks of 100 concurrent players which also generated a revenue, fuelling my motivation to delve deeper into programming.

Over the years, I've shifted away from video games and expanded my skill set to include various programming languages and frameworks. I approach the simple inefficiencies in products, procedures and repetitive tasks, and constantly seek opportunities to build tools that will solve them.

Even in everyday moments, the developer mindset kicks in. Whenever I land on a website, I instinctively wonder how it's built, what tech stack powers it, and how I might improve it. For me, coding isn't just a profession - it is a deep-rooted part of how I think, learn and create.

Work Experience

I have had the opportunity to work with amazing teams, where I have learned a lot and contributed to exciting projects. Here are some of the highlights of my recent work experience.

Incubation Intern

  • Develops proofs of concept to validate the value and feasibility of innovative solutions.
  • Builds reusable technical foundations and documents learnings to facilitate knowledge transfer to delivery teams.

Developer Experience (DevX) Intern

  • Integrated a centralized developer support portal (Backstage).
  • Built a data aggregator powering an AI-driven conversational assistant.
  • Improved the internal IT collaboration platform.
  • Gained hands-on experience with large-scale enterprise technologies.

Observability Intern

  • Configured an observability platform for proactive monitoring of servers and applications.
  • Dynamically managed server resources to maintain optimal performance and resource efficiency.
  • Maintained C# APIs to support evolving business requirements.

Education

Academic background and institutions that shaped my technical foundation.

Honors & Awards

Recognition received for academic excellence, innovation, and competitive programming.

Bourse d'excellence Beenox

Scholarship

Fondation du Cégep de Sainte-Foy and Beenox · 2025–2026

Awarded for academic excellence, leadership, and sustained engagement in the IT program.

Bourse d'excellence Beenox certificate

iA Hackathon

1st Place

iA Groupe Financier · 2024

Won 1st place in iA's inaugural internal hackathon — a tech donation challenge benefiting a non-profit. Participated in all three consecutive editions (2023, 2024, 2025).

BP Hacks

2nd Place

Botpress · 2026

Ranked 2nd overall at Botpress's Quebec City hackathon.

Coveo Blitz

Quarter Finals

Coveo · 2026

Reached the quarter-finals at this regional competitive programming competition.

Canadian Computing Competition

Participant

University of Waterloo · 2025

Represented CÉGEP de Sainte-Foy at the national algorithmic programming competition.

Canadian Computing Competition certificate

Hackathon de l'Institut Quantique

1st Place

Institut Quantique, Université de Sherbrooke · 2026

Completed the Introduction à l'informatique quantique workshop at SherHack Quantique.

Hackathon de l'Institut Quantique certificate

Projects

Here are some of the projects I've worked on. Each project represents a unique challenge and learning experience.

Sherba

A mobile app helping University of Sherbrooke students find housing by combining roommate preferences and aggregating listings across multiple platforms. Features AI-powered data structuring, isochrone-based filtering, and a provider-agnostic scraping architecture.

React NativeTypeScriptNestJS

Dictionary

A modern web-based dictionary application with a clean interface for looking up word definitions, synonyms, and usage examples.

ReactTypeScriptVercel

Todo

A task management application for organizing and tracking your daily tasks and projects. This was a learning project to get a better understanding of standard practices. I used Claude AI as an architectural advisor.

GoLangSQLiteClaude

This Portfolio

A personal portfolio website built with Next.js, showcasing my projects, skills, and experience. Features internationalization support for English and French.

Next.jsReactTypeScript

Globber

A high-performance Go library for matching file paths against glob patterns and traversing file systems. Features a stack-based matching algorithm, zero dependencies, and optimized performance with object pooling.

Golang

Gear

A lightweight, type-safe CLI framework for Go with automatic help generation, argument validation, and hierarchical command structures. Built with zero dependencies using only Go's standard library.

Golang

Handy

A simple programming language built as a learning sandbox for understanding how interpreters and compilers work. Features a custom lexer, parser, and interpreter with module support.

Golang

Pace Task Runner

A lightweight, minimal dependency task runner for polyglot environments. Designed to be fast and efficient, making it easy to automate tasks in various programming languages.

Golang

Mia

A desktop application that simplifies zip file creation for academic project submissions. Built with Tauri, featuring file exclusion rules, customizable naming, and IDE integration.

TypeScriptRustTauri

Boxes

A command-line tool for managing Minecraft servers locally. Create and manage multiple server instances with customizable settings across Windows and macOS.

Rust

Maestro

A versatile command manager for Kotlin, designed to seamlessly integrate with PaperMC, Velocity and more. Enables efficient control and organization of commands.

Kotlin

MCCollector

A Minecraft library that replicates Discord.js message collector functionality. Collect messages, locations, inventory clicks, and entities from players.

Kotlin

Skills

Throughout my journey, I have acquired a diverse set of skills that enable me to tackle a wide range of challenges. My expertise spans across various programming languages, frameworks, and tools, allowing me to express my creative liberties and build innovate solutions.

Languages

  • TypeScript
  • Rust
  • Java
  • Python
  • C++
  • GoLang
  • Kotlin

Web

  • React
  • Next.js
  • Vue.js
  • Node.js
  • Tailwind CSS

Infra

  • Docker
  • Kubernetes

AI

  • Gemini
  • Ollama
  • Claude
  • MCP
  • GitHub Copilot

Interests

  • Rock Climbing 🪨
    Rock Climbing 🪨
  • Hiking 🥾
    Hiking 🥾
  • Skiing ⛷️
    Skiing ⛷️