jb
Software Engineer · Ottawa, Canada
John
Breton.
Engineer working on open-source security at Canonical — where Ubuntu is hardened, vulnerabilities are triaged, and complex disclosures are made legible for the community.
01 / Experience
My work.
Nov 2025 — Present
Canonical — Software Engineer I
Ubuntu Security · Ottawa, CA
- Applied AI tooling to the Ubuntu Security Notice pipeline, turning noisy vulnerability data and draft reports into clear, actionable disclosures for the open-source community.
- Authored and led comprehensive threat modeling for the Ubuntu Archive, enforcing strict SDLC principles and a "secure by default" posture for core open-source infrastructure.
- Refactored legacy Python tooling into concurrent CVE and security-notice processors, reducing execution time by more than 70%.
- Onboarded and mentored new team members into high-priority security engineering workflows.
Dec 2024 — Nov 2025
Canonical — Associate Software Engineer
Ubuntu Security · Ottawa, CA
- Triaged, assessed and patched hundreds of CVEs across Ubuntu packages, maintaining rapid deployment and high compliance across supported releases.
- Developed QA tests for supported packages, improving coverage by ~10% while safeguarding stability.
- Spearheaded internal + public documentation, growing content by over 100% and building knowledge-base articles that now anchor Ubuntu's security workflows.
Sep 2020 — Aug 2021
Ericsson — 5G/LTE Software Developer Intern
Baseband · Ottawa, CA
- Built automated test cases in a Java framework to validate critical 5G and LTE functionalities.
- Led internal knowledge-sharing sessions introducing new test automation initiatives to the baseband team.
- Piloted a transition program for 50+ engineers, shifting manual testing toward automation and cutting LTE turnaround by 20%.
02 / Open Source
My projects.
001
TicTacBombs
A chaotic re-imagining of tic-tac-toe with bombs that reshape the board mid-game — built as a study in small-scope game design and turn-based state management.
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002
Dubhe
M.A.Sc. Thesis Implementation — ✨ Dubhe is an analysis tool that takes in UML activity diagrams to determine a system's behavioural security posture.
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003
ZOIA Librarian
Community patch-management for the Empress ZOIA — a PyQt desktop app for browsing, organizing and syncing user-created patches. Co-maintained with the ZOIA community.
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03 / Research
Peer-reviewed publications.
FPS 2024
December 2024
An Approach to Determine a System's Behavioural Security Posture
17th Intl. Symposium on Foundations & Practice of Security — pp. 94–110
FPS 2023
December 2023
Hardening Systems Against Data Corruption Attacks at Design Time
16th Intl. Symposium on Foundations & Practice of Security — pp. 391–407
NDSS 2023
April 2023
Assessing Threats for Users with Disabilities via Accessibility Metrics
MADWeb Workshop on Security Measurements, Attacks & Defenses
★ Best Presentation Award
Education.
M.A.Sc. — Electrical & Computer Engineering
Carleton University · Software Engineering stream
Sep 2022 — Nov 2024 · GPA 3.93 / 4.00
Thesis: Analyzing the Behavioural Security Posture of Software Systems
B.Eng. — Software Engineering, CO-OP
Carleton University
Sep 2018 — April 2022 · GPA 3.84 / 4.00
Toolkit.
Languages
Java, Python, C/C++, JavaScript, Bash, PostgreSQL, HTML/CSS, Go (actively learning)
Technologies
Linux, Git, Spring, Flask, Docker, AWS (EC & S3), Jenkins, Maven, JUnit, Ubuntu, PyQt, CI/CD, Figma
Certifications
CompTIA Security+ · ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC)
Spoken
English (native) · Français (fluent)
04 / Get in touch