Joshua T Kalis he/him/his

The teams I lead quickly become great teams, setting the pace and example for others. Great teams are more than simply a group of people working on similar projects. Great teams require purpose, intention, and a shared vision of success. Great teams have common goals and practices that are well known and followed. I build great teams made up of people who respect each other, solve hard problems together, and support and challenge one another.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are important to me therefore they are considerations I keep in mind constantly when building or growing a team. Different viewpoints are important to the success of the team, company, and community. Variety is the spice of life, it is also a recipe for success. No one should feel minimized in any pursuit of success and everyone should feel safe being themself. The world is not a perfect place, and not everyone has the same vision of what perfect even is, so we all need to help make it better through candid communication and collaboration.

Employment History

Rocket Mortgage / Quicken Loans

Engineering Manager

Mar 2018 - Dec 2021

  • Organized expectations of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) in a widely adopted Manifesto
  • Built and systematized a Community of Practice for SRE
  • Drove the adoption of SRE best practices around Service Level Agreements (SLA) and Service Level Objectives (SLO)
  • Propelled an initiative fully realizing Rocket Mortgage as a multi-region application
  • Championed work on automated observability testing for all systems; preliminary work for chaos engineering
  • Defined Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for the team and helped coach other leaders in producing their OKRs

Solutions Architect

Nov 2015 - Mar 2018

  • Worked with many teams on API design and Hypermedia in RESTful integration patterns
  • Accelerated adoption of, and defined enterprise standards for using, AWS
  • Guided data-driven selection of vendor products for enterprise integration layer
  • Consolidated knowledge of API-first design processes and evangelized tools
  • Facilitated learning sessions for teams working through migrations from SOAP to REST

Sr. Software Engineer

Apr 2012 - Nov 2015

  • Influenced the direction of web applications development
  • Developed - in partnership with enterprise stakeholders - initial versions of Rocket Mortgage user experience and technical implementation
  • Proposed, presented, and developed an innovative solution for mortgage pricing calculation rules helping to improve user experience and execution performance using a Domain Specific Language (DSL)
  • Consulted with many teams on topics such as web accessibility, JavaScript frameworks and toolsets, and software engineering best practices

Centurion Medical Products

Senior UI Engineer

Sep 2010 - Apr 2012

  • Collaborated with leaders from Marketing and Technology to produce a new corporate website
  • Migrated source control from Microsoft TFS 2010 to Git

Academic Information Systems - Michigan State University

Lead UI/UX Engineer

Sep 2008 - Jun 2010

  • Agile coach and mentor
  • Evangelized browser-stack standards, guidelines, and best practices
  • Modernized technology for version control and CI/CD
  • Supervised user experience design of student login

International Business Center - Michigan State University

Graphic Designer and Lead UI/UX Engineer

Apr 2003 - Sep 2008

  • Academy of International Business (http://aib.msu.edu)
    • Streamlined international conference event scheduling
    • Spearheaded academic publishing book review system
  • globalEDGE (http://globaledge.msu.edu)
    • Cultivated a simple UI for multiple international time-series datasets
    • Optimized a custom content management system (CMS) for student contributors
    • Implemented a projects management system and bug tracker for department projects

Education

Michigan State University

Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media - BA

May 2006

Non-Information Technology

Aquamen Landscaping, White Lake, MI

Landscape Designer/Owner

Apr 2001 - Aug 2005

  • Designed and installed landscapes and built structures
  • Collected accounts payable and purchased requisite supplies

Meridian Lawn Care & Snow Removal, Meridian Twp, MI

Landscaping Coordinator

Feb 2003 - Sep 2004

  • Collaborative design with customers
  • Purchased materials for landscapes in excess of $50,000

Case Residence Hall Cafeteria [MSU], East Lansing, MI

Prep-Cook

Mar 2002 - Apr 2003

  • Prepared and served food - 2000 meals per day
  • Mentored 3 students per semester in proper food preparation

Cobra Enterprises, Madison Heights, MI

Machinist

Jun 1999 - Jan 2002

  • Streamlined production of multi-million dollar prototype manufacturing jobs
  • Modified machining techniques to reduce down time
  • Verified quality control specifications

Video Giant, Sterling Heights, MI

Store Manager

Sep 1996 - Apr 1999

  • Regulated inventory and reduced theft in 7 stores
  • Employee relations including: scheduling, hiring, and firing
  • Trained 40 employees each year

Wheeler & Sons Construction, Independence Twp, MI

Carpenter

May 1996 - Aug 1996

  • Basic structural framing in residential housing
  • Manual labor organizing building materials

Sweetwater’s Bistro, Keego Harbor, MI

Swing Cook

Sep 1994 - May 1996

  • Mediated service of an average of 900 meals per night
  • Adapted to work in high demand environments