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Elaine Arbaugh

Staff Software Engineer at Affirm, Inc.

Elaine Arbaugh is a Staff Software Engineer at Affirm, Inc., specializing in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and Platform Engineering.1 She joined Affirm in August 2016 as the company's first SRE.1 Throughout her tenure, Elaine has made significant contributions to Affirm's infrastructure and engineering practices:

  1. Infrastructure Scaling: Elaine played a crucial role in scaling Affirm's systems for high-traffic events like Black Friday and major merchant launches.1

  2. Observability Improvements: She led efforts to enhance Affirm's observability by implementing instrumentation for SQL queries, which helped identify and resolve performance issues.13

  3. Metrics and Monitoring: Elaine has been instrumental in developing Affirm's custom metrics, monitoring, and alerting systems.34

  4. Public Speaking: She has represented Affirm at various tech conferences, including @Scale 2019 and Grace Hopper 2017, where she discussed Affirm's infrastructure and monitoring systems.34

  5. Database Optimization: Elaine's work on SQL query instrumentation led to significant performance improvements, such as reducing the number of queries for a specific endpoint from over 10,000 to just 8.1

  6. Event Readiness: She has shared insights on infrastructure event readiness for e-commerce startups, drawing from her experience in managing high-traffic events at Affirm.2

Elaine is known for her expertise in building reliable, performant, and observable systems. Her work has been crucial in helping Affirm scale its infrastructure to meet the demands of rapid growth in both traffic and engineering team size.34

Highlights

May 2 · aws.amazon.com
Affirm's Infrastructure Event Readiness Advice for E-Commerce ...
Apr 8 · tech.affirm.com
Affirmer Spotlight: Meet Elaine - Affirm Tech Blog
Affirmer Spotlight: Meet Elaine - Affirm Tech Blog
Nov 2 · tech.affirm.com
Metrics, Monitoring, and Alerting | by Elaine Arbaugh | Affirm Tech Blog
Metrics, Monitoring, and Alerting | by Elaine Arbaugh | Affirm Tech Blog

Related Questions

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Elaine Arbaugh
Elaine Arbaugh, photo 1
Elaine Arbaugh, photo 2
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Location

San Francisco, California