Kaolin Fire kaolin.fire@erif.org 510 919-4966

I thrive on brainstorming back-of-napkin ideas and turning them into visceral reality, teasing out what works and doesn't. I want to work on something that will change the world for the better, either in some small way pervasively or by some fundamental shift. https://github.com/kaolin/ http://stackoverflow.com/users/856925/kaolin-fire https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/kaolin-fire/id506161943 https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=kaolin+fire BS Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Focus in Bioelectrical Engineering. Core courses included digital design, signal processing, bioelectrical interfacing, algorithms, and system modeling. University of California, Berkeley 1995 2000 Berkeley California USA LDM Prompting (midjourney, flux, emu) LLM Prompting (llama, gemini, chatgpt) Code Prompting (claude code) Creative Enablement (Claude Code) JS (React, React Native) Python C GDScript Product Development and Management Process Definition Architecture Definition and Review Photoshop Xcode Godot vi/vim OS X Linux (Ubuntu) This includes neurochemistry, biology, electrical engineering, interfacing, artificial intelligence, theories of consciousness, chaos theory, and all things related. I enjoy painting (generally abstract/surreal), and writing fiction and poetry. I run a few writing-related sites and published an award-winning magazine of literary + genre fiction, poetry, and art. I develop the odd computer game on the side: desktop (Win/OSX/linux), Flash, and iPhone. That's generally how I sit down to learn a new language, platform, or technology, if I don't already have a problem defined for me. Excellent communication and problem-solving skills, with a strong ability to adapt to the situation at hand. Specialties include (but are not limited to) database interfaces, creating data channels between heterogeneous systems, quickly evaluating and learning new technologies, and designing systems that run themselves. Many years of experience using and administering a wide range of computer platforms. Well-rounded person with an eclectic set of interests, ideas, and hobbies; I add personality and depth to any situation. Favorite words include: context, perspective, and scale. Staff Engineer Facebook/Meta Menlo Park California USA October2020 NPE (New Product Experimentation) - full stack product development - built React Native (iOS + Android) apps backed by Firebase, Python, Hack/GraphQL, and React, rapidly prototyping new products to find product-market fit. NPE - firefighting tour - served as the expert who could jump into any stuck project and take it to the finish or own key deep technology, ranging from mapping to bridging heterogeneous CMS systems. NPE - product pitching - pitched a handful of apps; one was release-ready when NPE was shuttered and moved with me into the GenAI org. GenAI - product exploration - explored Meta's latest research models to find novel product ideas focused on creativity and expression, deep prompting, exposing model features, and rapid product development. GenAI - MovieGen "October moment" - designed and built the system that allowed MovieGen to ramp up tens of thousands of videos, enabling dozens of artists and content engineers to prompt the model, learn the system, and feed insights back to research; credited on the MovieGen paper. GenAI - autonomous content generation - built out an autonomous content generation team that culminated in the "Vibes" Meta AI launch. GenAI - training data frontier - currently pushing the frontier of the kinds of data we can generate to train frontier models. IP - multiple patents submitted. Principal Architect Grabango Berkeley California USA June2018 April2020 Business - discovered a disconnect in system expectations between engineering and leadership, pitched novel solutions, and helped the business understand the disconnect such that they could realign their own and customer expectations and shift the product roadmap. Core technology - saw a failure in hardware expectations, dug into failure modes, developed a system to characterize and triage hardware prior to installation; worked with third-party contractors to further improve process and recoup investment. Core technology - developed a novel solution for sensor extrinsics determination; worked with third-party contractors to build out the interface to decrease development time. Core technology - delved into networking and SPI interfaces to assist debugging custom hardware; managed burn-in testing and evaluation. Process - product specifications - defined a template for product and project specification to standardize expectations and expose miscommunication. Process - mentoring - mentored junior and senior engineers towards better software definitional processes and understanding of business, product, and engineering needs. Principal Architect / Director of Research / Director of iOS / Subverter of Product DITTO San Francisco California USA June2016 June2018 Core technology - face-shape based recommendations - dug into data and metrics, expanded ground truth meaningfully, defined the necessary targets and methodology for achieving same. Core technology - scaling - dug into technology stack to fix egregious errors in a new scaling technology, defined processes for evaluating and roadmap for creating tools and addressing issues. DITTO iOS SDK - theater - translated an adobe after effects video into a data-driven API and consumer-facing CoreGraphics animation. DITTO iOS SDK - vto + iq - directed and implemented core functionality for iOS interface to virtual-try-ons, theater, and recommendations. Various enterprise/partner iOS apps - defined, executed and/or managed execution of a handful of bespoke and white-labeled in-store apps and technology demo apps. Process - product specifications - defined a template for product and project specification to standardize expectations, change management, sign-off, and releases. Process - artefacted releases and gitflow - helped drive definition and adoption of git branching strategy and repeatable/documented/tagged releases, as well as semantic versioning. DITTO js SDK - principal architect of major refactor focusing on ease of client customization/implementation and simplification/separation of technology stack. Process - implemented CI for iOS SDK and several iOS products. SDE III A9 San Francisco California USA April2014 June2016 Architected, prototyped, designed, and implemented portions of—and managed a small team implementing the rest of—a city-scale data acquisition project (Python, C++, Objective-C, PostGreSQL, computer vision, UX). Advised/mentored/assisted the building of supporting tools for same, and building them out for other projects (Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, PostGreSQL, js). Presented two posters and a talk at successive internal computer vision conferences; chaired another set of talks at same. (Keynote, UX). Implemented several prototype apps for exploration of UX and technical ideas (Photoshop, UX, Objective-C). VP of Products Blindsight Berkeley California USA September2012 April2014 Guided development on an increasing array of products (Objective C/C/C++, Photoshop, UX). Wrote and submitted grants to the NIH and NSF; developed an academic poster as well as a Google Talk (Keynote). Senior Software Engineer Blindsight Berkeley California USA September2011 September2012 Turned a decade of research into a real product on the App Store; drove UX for accessibility and "curb appeal"; product has received rave reviews from the blind community (Objective C/C++, Photoshop). Developed a number of iOS proof-of-concept apps and research tools for internal use and to promote the technologies involved to interested parties (Objective C/C++). Designed and implemented a "ground truth data system" for collecting and annotating data to help train our algorithms against (Python, CherryPy, Postgresql, Octave). Defined a simple and efficient clustering algorithm for a key tier of our text detection algorithm. Senior Software Engineer 510 Systems Berkeley California USA June2010 August2011 Maintained and extended company's flagship software (git, C++, cmake, Qt). Developed a proof-of-concept server for GIS-related information (python). Instigated, developed and maintained a company-wide database of information where none had existed; extended with three separate front-ends, with the intention of bringing them together after further exploration (python, php, js, sqlite, cron). Software Architect/Developer (personal projects) 1998 (2026) spacetags (https://spacetags.app) macOS utility that overlays floating, color-coded labels on each Space, making workspace switching legible without a tiling window manager. Uses private Space-identification APIs for durable per-Space binding. Written in Swift. (2026) izzit (https://izzit.app) Cross-platform daily drawing game: sketch a single word prompt, Gemini grades it in ~2 seconds, earn tier-ranked trading cards. iOS + Android, written in Swift and Kotlin. (2016-) Timeful (https://erif.org/timeful/) iOS mindfulness/time-awareness app that counts the minutes aloud — designed for ADHD, meditation, and time blindness. Timer / Clock / Countdown modes with Siri Shortcuts integration. Collaboration with Craig Mieritz (production) and Fiel Valdez (design); I'm the developer and ongoing maintainer. Written in Swift. (2011) Heaven and Hell (http://erif.org/code/games/tetris.php) Implemented the xkcd comics "Hell" and "Heaven" within 12 hours of their being posted. "Heaven" was posted about on Boing Boing, ycombinator, kotaku, and more. Written in AS3. (2008) Detritus (http://erif.org/code/detritus/) maps the standard Asteroids torus to the surface of a sphere; the game is largely unchanged from traditional play excepting the use of 3d models and the odd orientation of the rest of the playing field (and a few powerups). This was my first serious foray into C++, and gave me a chance to brush up on trig and geometry, as well as learn about quaternions. Written in C++ with OpenGL, OpenAL, and SDL. (2003) Falling Up (http://erif.org/code/fallingup/) is a "twist" on the standard falling tetronimos game, and is by far my most well-received. Building on ideas of an earlier version ("Groovy Tetris" ~ written with a C core and compiled with MFC for Windows and GTK+ for linux), this was my first foray into OpenGL. I later ported Falling Up to the iPhone using an ObjectiveC wrapper (and the reduced OpenGL ES library), but had to remove the app from the app store due to complaints from The Tetris Company. (2001-) poemranker (http://poemranker.com) is a cross between a poetry workshop and the amihotornot phenomenon. I designed, wrote, and maintain the site. It was Yahoo's pick of the day (July 7, 2002) and has been covered in the UK's Guardian, twice, and once on BBC Radio 2. 17 May 2026