Ken Powers

Software Engineer · Remote

• Developed and maintained complex applications using TypeScript, React, MUI, CodeMirror, Zustand, and Tanstack Query, with backend contributions in Java.
• Built Expression Editor with syntax highlighting, full-path autocomplete, AI completion, keyboard navigation, and other assistive features.
• Designed and implemented Global AI with contextual switching.
• Implemented workflow editor breakpoints enabling step-level debugging.
• Built a spreadsheet-style editor supporting cell selection, copy/paste, and grid paste spreading.
• Established Playwright e2e testing patterns with feature flag mocking and authentication handling, then parallelized the suite in CI.
• Led frontend platform upgrades including and wrote custom lint rules to enforce codebase invariants.
• Built shared agentic development tooling for the frontend team, including review commands, repo conventions, and worktree setup.
• Delivered numerous UI/UX refinements.

Senior Software Engineer · Remote

• Developed and maintained complex applications using TypeScript, React, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, Rails, and Sidekiq.
• Built a type-safe automation platform trigger editor capable of managing deeply nested data structures.
• Built a Liquid/Markdown editor with syntax highlighting and a custom language service supporting autocomplete and linting.
• Built a SQL editor with inline error reporting from remote (customer-hosted) data warehouses.
• Led frontend migration from Webpack to Vite, reducing build times and improving developer productivity.
• Prototyped AI/LLM RAG Q&A in Rust using OpenAI Embeddings and an HNSW index.
• Managed AWS infrastructure across multiple environments using Terraform.
• Worked with systems designed to protect PII.
• Implemented custom linting rules to prevent database deadlocks and regex injection vectors.
• Improved developer productivity with Nix, Navi, and direnv.
• Led our first cross-functional working group to evaluate emerging AI technologies for both internal and product use.

Desktop Developer · Remote

• Modernized the desktop application by migrating from legacy Backbone.js to React/Redux with TypeScript.
• Designed and implemented features like a virtualized, fuzzy-searchable emoji picker and inline emoji typeahead.
• Built a cross-platform sticker creation tool with encryption and native library integrations.
• Refactored the desktop application to support multiple addressing schemes.
• Worked with and designed for systems involving distributed state.
• Worked with SQLite, SQLCipher, and Protobufs.
• Worked extensively in open source and worked directly with our users.

Lead Frontend Engineer · Boston, MA

• Designed and implemented upload queueing, cross-window Redux store sync for Electron, and SVG-based annotation tools.
• Mentored junior engineers and presented multiple talks about advanced concepts in JavaScript and React/Redux.
• Hired as Senior Software Engineer. Promoted to Lead Software Engineer in March 2018.

Software Engineer · Remote (Waltham, MA)

• Built tools for distributing and monitoring doctor workloads across facilities using Angular and PHP.
• Open-sourced a Babel plugin for automatic dependency injection in Angular projects.
• Prototyped Electron applications with native integrations to radiology software.
• Prototyped new projects with React and Vue.
• Delivered internal tech talks on modern JavaScript and CSS best practices.

Staff Software Engineer · Littleton, MA

• Developed high-performance front-end solutions using React, Redux, and the Dojo Toolkit.
• Automated builds and deployments with Jenkins.
• Contributed to open source software including the OpenNTF JavaScript Aggregator and the Frontend Maven Plugin.
• Created a mock browser environment for load testing offline capabilities.

Smarter Cities Technical Coop · Remote (Raleigh, NC)

• Developed a prototype for an IBM Smarter Cities data visualization product using Dojo Toolkit and OpenLayers.

Extreme Blue Innovation Lab Technical Intern · Austin, TX

• Led a cross-functional team to create a drag-and-drop mobile app development tool targeting non-technical users.
• Presented technical project details to multiple IBM executives.

Technology Administrator / Systems Development · Springfield, MA

• Built internal tools with ASP.NET MVC (C#) and Microsoft SQL Server to streamline corporate workflows.
• Created stored procedures for Microsoft SQL Server to generate reports on various data collected from stores.

Founder and Principal Engineer (Volunteer) · lets.church

• Founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides churches and Christian ministries free media hosting, transcription, search, live streaming, and Bible-study tools.
• Built the original MVP with SolidJS, Pothos/GraphQL, and Prisma, then rewrote it in React with TanStack Start, tRPC, and Drizzle.
• Built and operate a Temporal media pipeline for hardware-accelerated HLS transcoding, GPU transcription, speaker diarization, LLM-generated summaries and chapters, search indexing, and archival.
• Built OpenSearch-based hybrid lexical/vector search and cited AI Q&A across 90K+ long-form media files.
• Moved production to two bare-metal k3s clusters across two sites; automated provisioning and GitOps delivery with Ansible, Kustomize, and Argo CD, and integrated NVIDIA GPUs and AMD MA35D accelerators as schedulable Kubernetes resources.

Technical Director · Leominster, MA

• Designed and implemented live production setup using ProPresenter, Reaper, Lightkey, and Wirecast. See diagram.
• Implemented a MIDI-controlled automation system for seamless coordination of click tracks, backing tracks, lighting, and projection.
• Oversaw weekly setup and teardown of professional A/V equipment including sound, recording, and projection.
• Trained and mentored volunteers through hands-on sessions, instructional videos, and written documentation.

3.7 GPA · Amherst, MA

• Earned two academic awards for outstanding performance in computer science courses.
• Achieved Dean's List recognition for three out of four semesters.

3.8 GPA · Springfield, MA

• Received two annual awards for exceptional academic achievement.
• Completed directed studies in Computer Science and Mathematics.
• Achieved Dean’s List honors for all four semesters.