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.
May 2022 – Aug 2024
Carleton University · CyberSEA Research Assistant
CyberSEA Lab · Ottawa, CA
- Designed and implemented a security analysis tool that raises the security posture of software system designs in the earliest stages of development.
- Authored and presented novel research on security metrics and threat detection at two leading cybersecurity conferences.
- Ran interactive problem-solving sessions for 20+ students covering risk assessment, access control models and network security.
Sep 2021 – Apr 2024
Carleton University · Teaching Assistant
Systems & Computer Engineering · Ottawa, CA
- Ran lab sessions and assessed coursework for five upper-year courses, including Network and Software Security, Algorithms, and Real-Time Concurrent Systems.
- Reviewed group projects and gave feedback on design patterns, concurrent programming and system security principles.
- Built and shared lab solutions and resources used across the teaching team.
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%.
May 2020 – Aug 2020
Empress Effects · Project Developer
ZOIA Librarian · Ottawa, CA
- Designed, built and tested an open-source Python patch manager that has since passed 6,000+ downloads across releases.
- Collected user stories and authored the software requirements specification that drove development planning.
- Used PyQt to build a responsive desktop GUI with backend queries for real-time updates, distributing releases via GitHub.
02 / Open Source
My projects.
001
Nonogram 101
Picture nonograms you can solve alone or race through against 100 players at once. An installable React PWA that also ships as an Android app, with cookieless analytics and a theme that never flashes white on load.
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002
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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003
Dubhe
The implementation behind my M.A.Sc. thesis. Dubhe reads UML activity diagrams and determines a system's behavioural security posture before a line of it is written.
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004
ZOIA Librarian
Patch management for the Empress ZOIA pedal: a PyQt desktop app for browsing, organizing and syncing user-created patches. Started at Empress Effects, now community maintained, past 6,000 downloads.
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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
Applying Accessibility Metrics to Measure the Threat Landscape for Users with Disabilities
MADWeb Workshop on Security Measurements, Attacks & Defenses
★ Best Presentation Award
Education.
M.A.Sc., Electrical & Computer Engineering
Carleton University · Cybersecurity
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
Honours
NSERC USRAP · M M MacOdrum Scholarship · Dean's Honours List (×2)
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
Bilingual · English and Français
04 / Get in touch