John Skinner
Engineering Manager, SecureDrop at Freedom of the Press Foundation
Oakland, California, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJohn Skinner is an engineering manager focused on secure, public-interest software with 11 years of experience leading teams that deliver reliable, privacy-minded systems. Currently leading the SecureDrop engineering team at Freedom of the Press Foundation, he combines technical leadership with hands-on backend work to enable secure communication between whistleblowers and journalists. His background spans federal digital services at 18F, health informatics at Unite Us, and open-source identity work—contributing backend security and analytics integrations to the widely used Login.gov IdP. John blends product-minded engineering, data-driven improvements, and operational rigor, having built search and data pipelines for academic and civic projects. Based in Oakland, he brings an uncommon mix of design-rooted thinking (BFA) and deep backend expertise to complex, mission-driven problems.
11 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Fine and Studio Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Fine and Studio Arts at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Stackoverflow
1,826reputation
129kreached
68answers
18questions
Github Skills (19)
apim10
ruby-rails10
back-end-development10
rails10
identity-provider10
api10
backend10
analytics9
ruby9
oid8
rdf6
macos6
csv6
wikidata6
ruby-on-rails6
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
18F/identity-idp
Jul 2022 - Jan 2023
Login.gov Core App: Identity Provider (IdP)
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:113 reviews, 17 commits, 44 PRs in 5 months
Contributions summary:John primarily focused on enhancing the backend functionality of the application. Their contributions included implementing analytics event tracking, integrating with the ThreatMetrix API to improve security, and adding support for driver's license data. They also addressed various bugs and made code improvements to existing services, including SAML authentication and backup code management. Moreover, they handled changes in the API endpoints related to RDP2.
govoidcprovideridpcivic-tech
18F/doj-atr-prototype
Aug 2023 - Jan 2025
DOJ Antitrust Division (ATR) prototype developed by 18F in 2023
Contributions:35 reviews, 46 PRs, 52 pushes in 1 year 5 months
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