# 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

### Founder, CTO · LÜM Ventures

Chicago IL, July 2024 - Present

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