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Shawn O'Neill

Web Performance Expert and Founder @ SpeedSense | Twin dad | ✅ I am not a robot

Shawn O'Neill is the founder and CEO of SpeedSense Web Performance, a company specializing in website speed optimization for enterprise-scale ecommerce brands and omni-channel retailers.1 With over 15 years of experience in the software engineering and entrepreneurship industry, O'Neill has established himself as an expert in improving digital team effectiveness and product performance.1

Professional Background

O'Neill's expertise spans across various aspects of digital business:

  • Software Engineering: His technical background allows him to understand the complexities of website performance from a developer's perspective.1
  • Ecommerce Experience: Having run ecommerce teams, he has firsthand knowledge of the challenges in balancing customer demands with sustainable digital product development.1
  • Entrepreneurship: As the founder of SpeedSense, O'Neill demonstrates his ability to identify market needs and create solutions.1

SpeedSense Web Performance

Under O'Neill's leadership, SpeedSense focuses on:

  • Improving website speed for businesses to enhance their digital experience and increase revenue.1
  • Providing hands-on, tailored approaches to identify and solve website bottlenecks.1
  • Empowering existing teams with the knowledge to maintain high-performance websites.1

Philosophy and Approach

O'Neill's business philosophy is characterized by:

  • A pragmatic understanding of business constraints and priorities.1
  • Compassion for end-users, reflected in SpeedSense's holistic approach to performance.1
  • A balance between broad perspective and focused expertise in website speed optimization.1

Location and Connections

Based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, Shawn O'Neill maintains a strong professional network with over 500 connections on LinkedIn.23 His LinkedIn username is indeed shawnoneillca, as mentioned in the query.2

Through his work at SpeedSense, O'Neill aims to level the playing field on the web, ensuring that businesses of all sizes can access the resources needed to compete effectively online.1

Highlights

Jul 11 · linkedin

Client-side A/B testing can wreck your Core Web Vitals!

We published a great new #shopify #webperf case study this week where this was the case.

This client had inherited some tech debt when they bought the company from the previous owners.

They hadn't realized that a simple, obsolete page-hiding snippet was still in place, from the previous owner having run an experimentation program.

Our immediate recommendation was to rip that out.

They saw an immediate increase in site speed, and now Google is taking note, and their SEO traffic is on the rise.

We've partnered with them for the remainder of the year to monitor the effect this will have on their bottom line.

Check it out at the link!

#sitespeed #shopifyplus #abtesting #cro #experimentation #ecommerce #webperf #casestudy

Jul 3 · linkedin

I had a great time last weekend teaching #developers, #product managers, and more about the finer details of web performance and Core Web Vitals at the Google Developer Groups (GDG) Burnaby event.

What started out as a lightning talk quickly turned into a deep and engaging whiteboard session.

Together we dug into topics like:

  • Real world examples of each #corewebvitals metric and how to improve them.

  • Preloading placeholder images vs descriptive text.

  • TTFB as a lower-bound to FCP and LCP.

  • Native image lazy-loading, and the inverse relationship to network speed.

  • Shopify's efforts to crack down on fake performance optimization

  • Shopify's claims that they're the "Fastest" (while defining "Fast" as a metric that suits the backend, not the user.)

  • #Lighthouse vs Core Web Vitals: When each is helpful, vs not so much.

Thanks to the organizers (Vaishnavi Venkata Subramanian in particular) and attendees for a great event!

Related Questions

What inspired Shawn O'Neill to start SpeedSense?
How has Shawn O'Neill's background in software engineering influenced his approach at SpeedSense?
What are some notable success stories from SpeedSense under Shawn O'Neill's leadership?
How does SpeedSense's approach differ from other web performance companies?
What challenges has Shawn O'Neill faced in his career, and how did he overcome them?
Shawn O'Neill
Shawn O'Neill, photo 1
Shawn O'Neill, photo 2
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Location

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada