Senior Software Engineer at Zoox

Kaiden RawlinsonSenior full-stack engineer and product-minded builder.

I design and ship polished software end to end - from interaction design and React/TypeScript interfaces to APIs, data models, testing, and systems architecture.

I have nearly 15 years of experience building products, leading technical direction, and turning ideas into software people love.

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Selected work

I’m at my best where engineering, product thinking, and interaction design overlap.

My work includes learning platforms used at scale, AI-native products, complex planning and visualization tools, and production systems developed in close partnership with designers, researchers, product teams, and engineers.

Tech Foundations program page showing twelve topic cards, each with Start learning and Test your knowledge actions, and a program progress ring reading 1 of 12.

Learning & assessment platform

Pluralsight Tech Foundations

A structured technology-literacy program pairing expert-led courses with pre- and post-assessments, so learners and organizations could see skills actually change.

Technical lead

Read the Pluralsight Tech Foundations case study
NoteZap new-interview screen with a three-step Setup, Record, Review progress bar and a grid of note templates such as Medical SOAP Note and Psychiatry H&P.

AI-native product

NoteZap

An AI documentation assistant for clinicians, designed around a record-then-review workflow that keeps the professional in control of the final note.

Co-founder and sole engineer

Read the NoteZap case study
Project Dependency Graph showing a task table with dependencies, notes, and estimates beside an auto-laid-out graph of milestones and tasks.

Planning & visualization tool

Project Dependency Graph

A critical-path planning tool that turns a task list into a live dependency graph and schedule, making sequencing and risk visible to the whole team.

Sole designer and engineer

Read the Project Dependency Graph case study

Experience

Nearly 15 years of building and leading product software.

  1. Zoox

    3 years (2023 - Present)

    Senior Software Engineer

    Building software at Zoox in a complex, cross-disciplinary engineering environment. Mainly front-end focused with some backend and design work.

    • Working closesly with Product and Design to build intuitive user experiences.
    • Building operational system to support team productivity.
    • Coordinating cross-functional collaboration to deliver features.

  2. Pluralsight

    7 years (2016-2023)

    Full-stack engineer and technical lead

    Built and led learning-product initiatives across React, TypeScript, Node.js, APIs, and relational data. Worked from product definition and interaction design through architecture, implementation, testing, launch, and iteration.

    • Technical lead for Tech Foundations, a company-level priority, guiding a team of 12 engineers from architecture through launch.
    • Part of the original four-person team that designed and built Channels, a curation and sharing feature for learning content.
    • Mentored engineers and established reusable technical patterns that other teams built on.

  3. Earlier

    • Workfront · 4 years (2012 - 2016)

      Designed and introduced shared Selenium UI-testing libraries and patterns, and taught the QA team to adopt them.

Case studies

How the work came together.

Learning & assessment platform

Pluralsight Tech Foundations

Pluralsight · Technical lead

Problem
Organizations needed employees in every role—not just engineers—to understand cloud, data, AI, security, and software well enough to take part in technical decisions. Course libraries alone didn’t show whether anyone’s understanding had changed. Building a solution became one of Pluralsight’s top company priorities for several quarters.
What I owned
Technical direction and system architecture, leading a team of 12 engineers. I partnered with product and design on the learner experience, owned the data model, and stayed hands-on through implementation, quality, and launch.
Key decisions

  • Measure change, not just completion

    Each topic pairs a short course with a knowledge check before and after, so progress reflects what a learner can demonstrate rather than which videos they watched.

  • A bounded program with visible progress

    Twelve focused topics with a program-level progress indicator give non-technical learners a clear, finishable path instead of an open-ended catalog.

  • Design for what comes next without slowing delivery

    The architecture had to integrate with existing Pluralsight systems and leave room for future programs, while the team still shipped and iterated quickly.

  • Accessibility as a requirement

    The audience was every employee in an organization, so accessibility was treated as part of the definition of done rather than a follow-up.

Outcome
Launched on schedule and at a high quality bar, with assessment and progress analytics that let learners and organizations track skill growth over time.
What I learned
People learning outside their field need a clear starting point, a sense of progress, and honest feedback about what they know. A well-placed assessment does more than measure learning—it tells the learner where to focus next.
Technologies
TypeScriptNode.jsExpressPostgreSQLReactKafkaKubernetesAWS
Tech Foundations program page with twelve topic cards and a program progress ring.Open full-size screenshot
Every topic offers two entry points—“Start learning” and “Test your knowledge”—so learners who already know the material can prove it and move on.

AI-native product

NoteZap

Co-founder · Sole engineer, designer, and operator

Problem
Clinicians spend a large share of their day on documentation, and that burden contributes to burnout. Writing structured notes from a conversation is a natural fit for language models—but only if the clinician can trust, review, and correct the result.
What I owned
Everything technical: product and interaction design, the React/TypeScript frontend, backend and data model, AI/LLM integration, deployment, automated testing, usage analytics, and customer support.
Key decisions

  • Setup → Record → Review

    The flow makes review an explicit step. The model drafts; the clinician stays accountable for the final note and edits it before it’s used.

  • Templates define the output

    Clinicians choose a note format—SOAP, H&P, psychiatry follow-up, and others—which determines the generated sections, so output matches how each specialty already documents.

  • Operate it as a real product

    Automated tests, bug triage driven by customer reports, and usage data informed what to build next and kept a one-person operation reliable.

Outcome
Launched to practicing clinicians. User feedback centered on time recovered from documentation—especially from clinicians for whom writing notes was the hardest part of the job.
What I learned
Building an AI-driven product demanded a deep understanding of both the domain (clinical workflows) and how users interact with language models. It was essential to prioritize reliability, accuracy, and user trust over just automation or novelty.
Technologies
TypeScriptReactTailwind CSSFirebasePostgreSQLLLMs
NoteZap new-interview setup screen with note templates and a three-step progress bar.Open full-size screenshot
Setup keeps the clinician in charge of structure: the chosen template lists exactly which note sections will be generated before recording starts.

Planning & visualization tool

Project Dependency Graph

Pluralsight · Sole designer and engineer

Problem
Large cross-team projects kept slipping because sequencing lived in people’s heads and spreadsheets. When work was interrupted, it was hard to see which milestones were affected or what could safely move.
What I owned
The whole product: interaction design, frontend, backend, and real-time data—then used it to plan and run my team’s projects.
Key decisions

  • Edit in a table, understand in a graph

    Tasks, dependencies, notes, and estimates are entered in a simple table. The graph and Gantt views are derived from it, so the plan has one source of truth.

  • Make the critical path visible

    Milestones and dependency chains are laid out automatically, so the tasks that determine the delivery date stand out without anyone drawing a diagram.

  • Real-time by default

    Updates sync live, so the plan stays current during standups and planning conversations instead of becoming a stale artifact.

Outcome
The team used it to plan, track, and re-plan its work, and delivered its first several milestones on time with clear visibility into progress. When work was interrupted, the team could see which milestones were affected and re-plan quickly.
What I learned
A visualization earns its place when it changes the conversation. The most valuable part wasn’t the chart—it was how quickly the team could see the impact of a change.
Technologies
TypeScriptReactNode.jsFirebase
Task table with dependencies and estimates beside an automatically laid-out dependency graph.Open full-size screenshot
The table on the left is the source of truth; the graph on the right updates as dependencies change, exposing milestone chains at a glance.

Curated learning journeys

Pluralsight Channels

Pluralsight · One of four founding engineers

Problem
Learners and team leaders wanted to organize content around their own goals—onboarding, switching technologies, moving to the cloud—and share those paths with others.
What I owned
Design collaboration, full-stack implementation, automated testing, DevOps, and database design as part of a newly formed four-person team.
Outcome
Launched on time and became a durable part of the Pluralsight platform, used by individuals and by organizations to curate and share learning paths.
What I learned
Small teams with close product and design partnership can ship features that last for years when quality is built in from the start.
Technologies
TypeScriptReactNode.jsExpressPostgreSQLKubernetesAWS
Channels page showing curated channel cards with member counts and privacy settings.Open full-size screenshot
Channels let people curate, share, and track learning paths for themselves or their teams.

About

I’m a senior full-stack engineer who enjoys owning the entire path from an uncertain idea to a polished product.

My deepest experience is in React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, API and data design, automated testing, and product interface development. I’m equally comfortable shaping an interaction, establishing an architecture, prototyping quickly, or doing the less-visible work required to operate software reliably.

I enjoy building things that make complex ideas feel understandable. Throughout my career, I’ve worked closely with product and design partners, led technical direction, mentored engineers, and remained hands-on through implementation and delivery.

When I’m not immersed in building products, you’ll usually find me tinkering with electronics, restoring my house in San Francisco, or exploring the world with my fiancée and friends.

Capabilities

Product engineering
React · TypeScript · JavaScript · CSS · Design systems · Interaction & motion · LLMs · Python
Full-stack systems
Node.js · APIs · PostgreSQL · Data modeling · Kubernetes · AWS · Firebase
Quality & operations
Automated testing · Observability · CI/CD · Cloud infrastructure
Leadership
Technical direction · Prototyping · Cross-functional collaboration · End-to-end ownership

Experiments

Small things I build to think out loud.

What collaborators say

Technical breadth & mentoring

“Kaiden Rawlinson is one of the most talented engineers I've ever worked with. He is an absolute master across the stack. I've watched him scale and architect NodeJS backends while working with distributed data sets. I've watched him ship clean, testable, beautiful frontend React applications. I consider myself lucky to have gotten a chance to work with Kaiden for ~4 years at Pluralsight and have him to thank for his mentoring which has helped me harness much of the skill-set that I have today.”

James Walsh
Software Engineer

Technical breadth & mentoring

“I worked directly with Kaiden for several years at Pluralsight. Kaiden is patient, fun to be around, and a natural teacher and leader. He taught me a lot about front end development and watched as he grew into an effective full stack engineer as his back end prowess grew exponentially. I count myself lucky to have worked with him and any company would be extremely lucky to pick him up.”

Bressain Dinkelman
Senior Software Engineer

Product leadership

“Kaiden is hands down one of the greatest engineers I have had the pleasure of working with. Kaiden looks at the big picture of the product he is creating and creates with possibility! If you need a great mentor and lead for your engineering team. THIS. IS. YOUR. GUY.”

Maria Trujillo
Senior Product Manager

Design collaboration

“Kaiden is one of the good ones. Super talented across the stack, and enjoys working with designers to add those delightful details. 10/10 would hire!”

Danaan Clarke
Principal Product Designer

Leadership

“Unparallel JavaScript stack techincal ability, reliable, wicked-smart and naturally fit for leadership. This is one of the most brilliant engineers I have ever worked with. If you happen to hire him, consider yourself royally lucky.”

Leandro Miranda
Software Engineering Leader

Passion

“Kaiden is one of the best software engineers I've ever worked with. He is passionate about what he does, and he is exceptionally knowledgeable about all things code. You absolutely want him on your team.”

Aaron Stennett
Software Developer

Let’s talk.

I’m glad to talk about product engineering, learning products, or how AI can help people build real capability.

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