Orion Kindel

Engineering Leader • Scalable Systems Architect • Open-Source Advocate

Passionate about creating educational content to evangelize modern tools and practices, while actively growing in mentorship, team leadership, and business leadership roles. Dedicated to fostering open-source communities and contributing to impactful organizations.

Chicago, IL · +1 989 443 0197 · orionkindel@gmail.com · git.orionkindel.com · github.com/cakekindel · meetup.com/chicago-rust-meetup · linkedin.com/in/orion-kindel

Technical Skills

• Languages: Haskell, Purescript, Rust, OCaml, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript
• Infrastructure: AWS, Linux, CI/CD, Kubernetes, Docker
• Databases: PostgreSQL, SQL, NoSQL
• Architecture: Event-driven systems, microservices, monoliths
• Leadership & Process: Agile, Scrum, mentoring, hiring
• Version Control: Expert in Git, GitHub, and self-hosted Gitea instances, including mirroring and automated workflows.

Community Leadership

• Revived the Chicago Rust Meetup chapter post-pandemic by networking with the VP of Technology at Google to secure contributor access.
• Organized a series of in-person happy-hour meetups, growing attendance from 2 to over 40 regular participants within a year.
• Fostered a collaborative and welcoming environment, re-establishing the group as a hub for Rust developers in the Chicago area.
• Authored several blog posts on Rust, Typescript & pattern matching, which collectively gained 50,000 views on Medium, engaging a global audience with actionable guides, leading to improved adoption of Rust and functional programming.
• Regularly attend non-domain-specific tech meetups, serving as a community pillar and mentor to 20+ aspiring developers on career advice, technical skills and open-source contributions.

Experience

Architected and led the development of a full-stack Purescript MVP, balancing rapid delivery with long-term scalability and maintainability. Built a solid foundation with automated testing, monitoring, and zero tech debt, ensuring seamless expansion into the full platform vision.

Key Contributions

• Scalable, Maintainable Full-Stack Architecture
  • Designed a robust FRP-based frontend with monadic composition, enabling fine-grained state management and complex dependency resolution.
  • Engineered a metaprogramming-powered backend that minimizes boilerplate while supporting rich, complex REST semantics.
  • Ensured strict type safety between the frontend and API, preventing contract violations when deployed together.
• Future-Proof Database & API Design
  • Built a 4NF PostgreSQL schema with modularity and pivot flexibility, supporting the full platform roadmap.
  • Developed a bespoke migration system, ensuring seamless schema evolution without external dependencies.
  • Defined an OpenAPI + JSON Schema REST API, incorporating HATEOAS-style linked data for enhanced discoverability.
• Reliability, Automation & CI/CD
  • Scaffolding from day one included unit & end-to-end tests, liveness checks, and real-time monitoring, ensuring stability and observability.
  • Implemented full CI/CD with automated deployments, minimizing overhead for iteration.
  • Built an ephemeral test environment system, allowing isolated, instant database instances for high-speed automated testing.
• Open-Source Contributions & Thought Leadership
  • Authored technical blog posts on functional programming, Rust, Typescript, sharing insights with the developer community and demonstrating expertise.
  • Published multiple Purescript libraries as part of MVP development, contributing back to the ecosystem.
  • Advocated for FOSS involvement, ensuring company culture aligns with open-source best practices.
  • Trained a junior engineer with no prior FP experience, making them productive in Purescript within a month.
• Business & Product Strategy
  • Defined and continually refined product vision and roadmap, validating through hands-on customer feedback.
  • Led business development efforts, networking with investors and partners to drive funding and adoption.

Founder, CTO · Thunderstrike

Chicago, IL • June 2023 – April 2024

Founded and led the development of a full-stack Purescript MVP, rapidly iterating on core product hypotheses while balancing technical excellence with delivery. Built a highly scalable, event-driven architecture and established strong open-source contributions to the Purescript ecosystem.

Key Contributions

• High-Performance Full-Stack Architecture
  • Developed a fully type-safe monolithic codebase in Purescript, ensuring long-term maintainability and rapid prototyping.
  • Designed a JSON DSL for distributed web scraping, allowing complex behavioral configurations.
  • Built a robust type-level API contract system, ensuring zero API contract mismatches between backend and frontend.
• Database & Scalability Enhancements
  • Engineered a highly normalized (5NF) PostgreSQL schema, optimizing for performance and data integrity.
  • Leveraged PL/pgSQL functions, triggers, and user-defined types to improve data expressiveness and enforce constraints.
  • Created a bespoke database migration system, enabling safe, source-controlled schema evolution.
• Infrastructure & Event-Driven Processing
  • Built a horizontally & vertically scalable distributed web scraper, processing large-scale data efficiently.
  • Designed containerized, platform-agnostic infrastructure, ensuring easy deployment across environments.
  • Implemented event-driven architecture for modularity and independent scalability.
• Open-Source Contributions & Thought Leadership
  • Developed and published multiple open-source Purescript libraries, including:
    • purescript-postgresql – Ergonomic PostgreSQL interfacing for FP-based applications.
    • purescript-node-stream-pipes – Stream processing utilities for scalable data pipelines.
    • purescript-url-immutable – Immutable URL manipulation utilities for REST and API work.
  • Advocated for FOSS contributions, establishing a culture of open-source engagement.
• Business Strategy & Growth
  • Defined and refined company strategy, product roadmap, and investor pitch, securing early traction.
  • Led networking efforts at trade shows, meetups, and investor events, driving industry engagement.
  • Mentored three software engineering interns, training them in functional programming and making them productive in Purescript within two months.

Senior Software Engineering Team Lead · Qwick

Phoenix, AZ • February 2021 – March 2023

Led the engineering team at Qwick, where I drove the architecture and implementation of scalable, high-performance systems. Spearheaded initiatives that improved system reliability and streamlined engineering workflows, resulting in a 40% increase in velocity and a significant improvement in service reliability.

Key Contributions

• Scalable Architecture & Performance Optimization
  • Led the transformation of Qwick's monolithic system into a **distributed microservices architecture**, improving scalability and deployability.
  • Implemented **event-driven architecture**, decoupling services for independent scalability and reducing system bottlenecks.
  • Optimized system performance by introducing **automated performance testing**, reducing average response times by 35%.
• Reliability & Automation
  • Led the **migration to Kubernetes**, enabling more reliable container orchestration and horizontal scaling of applications.
  • Spearheaded the implementation of **automated testing** for unit, integration, and end-to-end testing, improving release cycles.
  • Developed and maintained CI/CD pipelines, reducing deployment times by 60%.
• Team Leadership & Mentorship
  • Managed and mentored a team of **5+ software engineers**, fostering an environment of growth, collaboration, and innovation.
  • Implemented **Agile/Scrum processes**, resulting in a 40% increase in sprint velocity and improving team satisfaction.
  • Organized **weekly code review sessions**, improving code quality and ensuring adherence to best practices.
• Cross-functional Collaboration
  • Collaborated closely with **product managers** and **designers** to define features and product requirements, ensuring alignment with customer needs.
  • Worked directly with the **CTO** to refine the company's technical vision, roadmap, and strategic goals.
  • Coordinated with **stakeholders** to gather feedback and refine development processes, ensuring that the product roadmap aligned with business objectives.

Software Engineering Team Lead · TheoremOne

Global • April 2020 – February 2021

Led two engineering teams in the successful delivery of high-quality, scalable software solutions for enterprise clients. Architected cloud-based systems on AWS and implemented best practices that significantly improved both development efficiency and product quality.

Software Engineer · StrongMind

Phoenix, AZ • March 2017 – April 2020

Contributed to the design and development of distributed systems and applications, focusing on educational technology. Key responsibilities included optimizing processes and system performance, and enhancing development efficiency.

Education

Associate's of Science

Scottsdale Community College, Awarded 2016