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.

Impact

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.
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.
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.
Drove Process Modernization: Led CI/CD automation and ephemeral environments for PRs, improving delivery speed and consistency.
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.
Pioneered SRE Practices: Launched the company’s first Site Reliability Engineering team, implementing multi-region cloud solutions and incident management improvements.
Leadership in Talent Development: Mentored and coached engineers through structured evaluation and feedback systems.
Architected Fintech Services: Designed secure and scalable distributed fintech applications.
Empowered Engineering Teams: Delivered internal workshops on RESTful design principles, accelerating API adoption and skill development.
Modern Web Development: Developed responsive, secure web applications from Figma designs using Next.js, Vite, Testing Library, and React Server Components.
Led Cloud Migration: Championed cloud-native standards for AWS migration across the enterprise.
Pattern-Driven Engineering: Established and documented architectural patterns, creating an internal blueprint for new and existing projects.

Employment

Software Engineer | Khan Academy 01/2026 - current
Software Engineer | Hypergiant 10/2024 - 01/2026
Software Engineering Team Lead | Visiting Media 05/2023 - 09/2024
Software Engineering Team Lead | Guaranteed Rate 12/2021 - 07/2022
Software Engineering Team Lead | Rocket Mortgage 04/2012 - 12/2021

Education

Michigan State University | BA, Information Science 05/2006