Front-end
TypeScript / React / Next.js / Vue / Svelte / Redux Toolkit / TanStack Query / Vitest / Playwright
Full-stackDeveloper
My goal is to write maintainable, clean and understandable code — so the next person to open the file, usually me, has an easy afternoon.
… /About me …
Hello. I'm Kai, a full-stack developer. Six years of shipping Go on the back, TypeScript on the front, and the boring infrastructure that keeps both honest.
Selected
4 of 11 · 2024—2026
Ledger
A double-entry ledger where every balance is a fold over immutable entries, and every write is safe to retry.
- Idempotency keys on every posting, so a retried request can never double-count.
- Balances are derived, never stored — a replay of the entry log reproduces any account at any instant.
- The whole thing fits in one binary and one database, which is the point.
Go / PostgreSQL / gRPC / Kafka
SourceWaypoint
One console for forty services: rollout state, live log tail, and a rollback that costs a single keystroke.
- Streams pod events over a single multiplexed socket instead of polling thirty endpoints.
- Rollback is a first-class control, not a page buried behind a confirmation dialog.
- Keyboard-first: every action has a shortcut, and the shortcut is printed next to it.
TypeScript / Next.js / Kubernetes API / WebSocket
SourceSift
Full-text search across two years of archived logs without keeping a single one of them hot.
- Bloom filters on cold objects mean most queries never touch object storage at all.
- Query results stream as they resolve, so the first matching line lands before the scan finishes.
- Retention is a policy file, not a cron job somebody has to remember.
Go / ClickHouse / S3 / Parquet
SourceCadence
Tokens compiled to CSS variables, with a visual diff that fails the build when a component quietly drifts.
- One source of truth compiles to CSS variables, Figma variables and native theme files.
- Every component ships a snapshot; a pixel move over threshold blocks the merge.
- Deprecations are codemods, so removing a token is a pull request rather than a memo.
TypeScript / Tailwind / Radix / Playwright
Source
Writing
The simplest useful thing you can build with Kafka and Go
A three-service pipeline, one topic, and the smallest amount of Docker that still teaches you what partitions actually do.
Postgres row locks, explained by drawing them
Every deadlock I have shipped was a wait-for graph I could not see. So I started drawing them, and they stopped happening.
A gRPC gateway you can actually debug
Trace IDs that survive the proxy hop, errors that keep their status code, and a reflection endpoint you leave switched on.
Why your list re-renders, and the four fixes in order
Measure first. Then memo, then split the context, then lift the key. Reaching for the fourth one first is how components rot.
Shipping a column rename without a maintenance window
Expand, dual-write, backfill, verify, contract. Five deploys instead of one, and nobody notices any of them.
… /where the years went …
Work
| Period | Company | Role | Stack |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 — 1 yr 9 mos | Northbound Systems | Staff engineer | Go & TypeScript |
| 2022 — 20242 yrs 1 mo | Fieldnote | Full-stack developer | Node & React |
| 2021 — 202211 mos | Halcyon Labs | Frontend developer | React & Vue |
| 2019 — 20211 yr 8 mos | Mercator Digital | Full-stack developer | Python & JavaScript |
6 years 5 months