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 and intention, 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 and as such 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

Team Leader, Engineering

Mar 2018 - Dec 2021

I help people achieve their professional goals and be their best self through clear and consistent communication. I led an excellent team of talented software and systems engineers building: infrastructure, RESTful APIs, apps, and application templates for our team members and applications to use. We leveraged the latest tools and services available within AWS and the industry.

  • Defined expectations of SREs and established an SRE community of practice
  • Empowered the multi-region migration of Rocket Mortgage
  • Championed work on automated observability testing for all systems; preliminary work to full chaos engineering
  • Evangelized the need for adopting SRE best practices around SLAs and SLOs
  • Defined OKRs for the team and helped coach other leaders to produce their own OKRs for their teams

Solutions Architect

Nov 2015 - Mar 2018

I worked with many teams on RESTful integration patterns between HTTP APIs; initially focusing on Mulesoft API gateway implementations. I also worked with teams on planning and building out cloud architectures in Amazon Web Services (AWS); heavily leveraging services such as: API Gateway, Lambda, Fargate, DynamoDB, Aurora (MySQL), and others.

  • Mentored/taught RESTful practices and accepted, or common, integration patterns
  • Defined integration layer requirements for API documentation

Sr. Software Engineer

Apr 2012 - Nov 2015

I have had the honor to work on, and influence direction in, most public-facing, and some internal, websites at Quicken Loans. I consult with many teams within Quicken Loans on topics such as: AngularJS, Hypermedia, JavaScript frameworks and toolsets, REST, single-page applications, and software engineering best practices.

  • Created first deployable solutions for what would become Rocket Mortgage
  • Defined a DSL for pricing calculation adjustments
  • Modernized user analytics tracking

Centurion Medical Products

Senior UI Engineer

Sep 2010 - Apr 2012

  • Environment: CSS, Git, HTML5, JavaScript, jQuery
  • Developed Umbraco CMS solution to replace existing corporate website(s)
  • Migrated projects from Microsoft TFS 2010 to Git for more flexible version control
  • Designed new overall look and feel for all internal web-applications
  • Established static content server for CSS, images, and JavaScript for internal applications
  • Teaching myself: Objective-C, HTML5 canvas, local storage

Academic Information Systems - Michigan State University

Information Technologist

Sep 2008 - Jun 2010

  • Environment: ASP (classic), CSS, CVSNT, HTML 4/5, Java, JavaScript, SQL Server 2005
  • Supervised user experience design for Java development team
  • Adopted Agile development methodologies
  • Developed dynamic data entry user interface
  • Coauthor of browser stack standards and guidelines

International Business Center - Michigan State University

Information Technologist

Apr 2003 - Sep 2008

Academy of International Business (http://aib.msu.edu)

  • Environment: AJAX, ASP (classic), CSS, JavaScript, SQL Server 2005, XHTML, XML, XSLT
  • Built event scheduling application for annual international conference
  • Developed book review system
  • Designed collateral, following U.S. Postal guidelines
  • Revamped advertisement campaign

globalEDGE.msu.edu (http://globaledge.msu.edu)

  • Environment: AJAX, ASP (classic), CSS, JavaScript, SQL Server 2005, XHTML
  • Normalized multiple public databases into a single data warehouse
  • Wrote JavaScript form validation library
  • Implemented home-grown content management system (CMS)
  • Designed flexible non-destructive relational database for home-grown CMS
  • Created projects management system and bug tracker

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