Joshua T Kalis index

Execution-focused software engineer with a strong record of delivering scalable, cloud-native solutions across complex, distributed systems. Skilled in translating business goals into high-impact technical implementations, driving quality through modern tooling, and solving real-world problems with measurable outcomes. Adept at building resilient applications, optimizing developer workflows, and contributing to both frontend and backend architecture. Passionate about writing clean code, improving system performance, and shipping reliable software.

Experience

10/2024 – Present | Hypergiant | Lead Full Stack Engineer

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnered with business, product, and technical stakeholders to plan and execute software initiatives aligned with mission objectives.
Reusable UI Architecture: Built and maintained reusable components for a custom, open-source design system using React and TypeScript.
Modern Web Development: Developed responsive, secure web applications from Figma designs using Next.js, Vite, Testing Library, and React Server Components.
Pattern-Driven Engineering: Established and documented architectural patterns, creating an internal blueprint for new and existing projects.
System Design Leadership: Led design discussions to ensure long-term maintainability and alignment across multiple teams.
Secure Delivery Environments: Supported full lifecycle delivery across both unclassified and classified environments.

05/2023 – 09/2024 | Visiting Media | Software Engineering Team Lead

Transformed Engineering Quality: Introduced quality standards for JavaScript and TypeScript, raising test coverage from 0% to 80% (100% for new code), increasing stability and ownership.
Attracted and Retained Top Talent: Built a high-performing team through strategic hiring, fostering a collaborative, growth-oriented culture.
Drove Process Modernization: Led CI/CD automation and ephemeral environments for PRs, improving delivery speed and consistency.
Enhanced Product Usability: Applied user research insights to design features that improved onboarding and user experience.
Scaled Team Operations: Integrated automated user acceptance testing (UATaaS), ensuring consistent product integrity.
Leadership in Talent Development: Mentored and coached engineers through structured evaluation and feedback systems.

12/2021 – 07/2022 | Guaranteed Rate | Software Engineering Team Lead

Optimized Technical Debt Reduction: Retired low-value legacy services, enabling core teams to focus on high-impact development.
Cultivated Team Engagement: Boosted morale and retention through a structured performance evaluation process in a high-turnover environment.

03/2018 – 12/2021 | Rocket Mortgage | Software Engineering Team Lead

Pioneered SRE Practices: Launched the company’s first Site Reliability Engineering team, implementing multi-region cloud solutions and incident management improvements.
Aligned Engineering with Business Growth: Built scalable services with Node.js and AWS to support top-of-funnel traffic and integrations.
Improved Incident Resolution: Reduced MTTR by 10% by introducing a status page for distributed service observability.
Leadership in DEI: Fostered a team culture rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion, making the team a preferred internal destination.
Attracted and Developed Top Talent: Promoted a strong culture of ownership and accountability, resulting in high retention and internal mobility.

11/2015 – 03/2018 | Rocket Mortgage | Software Architect

Architected Fintech Services: Designed secure, scalable networks for distributed fintech applications.
Led Cloud Migration: Championed cloud-native standards for AWS migration across the enterprise.
Enhanced Developer Experience: Created an open-source API spec linter to improve development workflows and reduce review times.
Empowered Engineering Teams: Delivered internal workshops on RESTful design principles, accelerating API adoption and skill development.

04/2012 – 11/2015 | Rocket Mortgage | Staff Software Engineer

Fostered Collaboration: Established a community of practice to enhance code reuse and cross-team communication.
Enhanced UX and Design: Improved design systems and usability across internal and external-facing applications.
Collaborated on Solutions: Worked closely with design and business teams to deliver user-centric technical solutions.
Innovation: Designed and implemented a domain-specific language (DSL) and custom editor for defining mortgage pricing rules, reducing user input time and improving execution speed.

09/2010 – 04/2012 | Centurion Medical Products | Senior Software Engineer

Directed CMS Selection: Led a strategic CMS evaluation, choosing an open-source solution that reduced costs and accelerated delivery.
Centralized Marketing Resources: Consolidated marketing tools and materials, improving access and usage for field teams.

04/2003 – 06/2010 | Michigan State University | Software Engineer

Database Normalization: Reorganized content storage and redesigned database schema to improve data classification and searchability, supporting more dynamic linking across the CMS.
Researcher UX: Implemented early AJAX patterns to replace full-page reloads, enabling responsive interfaces and better supporting researchers in discovering relevant data.

Education

05/2006 | Michigan State University | BA, Information Science

Study Abroad: The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, and Germany
Student Greenhouse Project website