Staff Software Engineer

kevin.WAJDOWICZ

Engineering Tools & Infrastructure

I build the platforms, pipelines, and tooling that let engineering teams do their best work — and I bring 20+ years of quality engineering instincts to every system I touch.

// about

Who I Am

Software engineer with a passion for developer experience, seamless internal tooling, and obscure movie quotes. I build and maintain the development environments, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure that let engineering teams move fast and ship with confidence.

My background in quality engineering gives me a sharp eye for reliability and correctness — I bring that same rigor to the platforms and systems that underpin how software gets built. I thrive in hands-on environments where I can solve real problems for real engineers, and I'm at my best when I can both build directly and mentor the people around me.

// experience

Work History

Staff Software Engineer
Lyra Health
Oct 2023 – Present

Lyra Health is a leading mental health benefits platform helping employees and their families access high-quality, personalized care through a network of vetted providers and evidence-based solutions.

  • Build and maintain development environments used across the engineering organization
  • Improve CI/CD pipelines to increase reliability, speed, and developer confidence
  • Develop internal tooling and infrastructure that enables engineering teams to ship faster and more efficiently
Engineering Manager
StackRox (acquired by Red Hat)
Mountain View, CA
Dec 2017 – Oct 2023

StackRox is a container security company offering a software platform to secure cloud-native applications across the entire container lifecycle.

Automation Testing
  • Built automation framework from ground up using Groovy and Spock to run full end-to-end test scenarios against any orchestrator
  • Incorporated automated tests into CI pipeline, providing a gatekeeper for code changes to master branch and streamlining testing efforts for releases
Infrastructure Automation
  • Built tooling to automate creation of Kubernetes clusters in various cloud providers using Docker containers
  • Built and maintained automation to create product demo environments used by the sales team during customer engagements
  • Managed private Docker repository used by customers to deploy StackRox
Release Management
  • Managed releases on a biweekly cadence aligned with sprint boundaries
  • Built release checklists for both development and testing/validation of releases
  • Drove engineering coordination with documentation team to produce high-quality customer-facing documentation
  • Reviewed and gave final approval on fixes/changes needed for release branches prior to final cut of GA images
  • Maintained patch releases and coordinated timing based on critical mass of bug fixes and impact to existing customers
Engineering Manager, Product Quality & Release
Clari
Sunnyvale, CA
Sep 2014 – Dec 2017

Clari is a sales analytics software service powered by artificial intelligence, providing forecast accuracy and visibility across the entire sales organization.

  • Built backend REST API automation framework in Java used for regression testing across the full product feature set
  • Guided QA team in building a Selenium-based UI automation framework written in Python to regress the web UI
  • Grew test automation coverage from ~30 backend tests to 800+ backend/UI tests
  • Pushed QA automated test integration into the build process as a gate for product deployments at all levels of development
  • Coordinated production releases, including go/no-go decisions, schedules, and customer hot-fix approvals
Senior QA Manager
Clearwell Systems (acquired by Symantec)
Mountain View, CA
Apr 2010 – Sep 2014

Clearwell Systems is the industry leader in E-Discovery solutions, providing powerful collection, indexing, search, and review capabilities for corporations, government agencies, and legal service providers.

  • Resource management, project planning, test schedule creation, and maintaining high quality standards under constant team demands
  • Provided Agile training and guidance across the engineering organization as Scrum Master
  • Prioritized automation initiatives to provide better functional and regression test coverage
  • Ran functional, performance, stress, upgrade, and system integration testing
  • Built close relationship with Customer Support to keep a pulse on customer pain points and support trends
  • Provided hooks and APIs for Java- and PERL-based test automation frameworks for each feature in development
  • Implemented RESTAssured testing libraries for automated web service testing
Senior QA Engineer
Veritas Software (acquired by Symantec)
Mountain View, CA
Oct 2003 – Mar 2010

Veritas Software specialized in storage management and high availability software, including Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) and Veritas Volume Manager (VM).

  • Scheduled and planned VPI and VCS QA activities for Mountain View Campus
  • Created Test Plans, Test Schedules, and Test Reports for the Veritas Product Installer
  • Primary QA engineer for the initial launch of the VCS One Policy Master for Windows
  • Created and maintained automated testing harness for the VCSOne Policy Master and Veritas Product Installer
  • Drove improvements to build creation and smoke testing processes
  • Created automated test cases and suites using QuickTest Pro, AutoIT, and in-house scripting languages

// skills

Technical Expertise

Programming Languages
Java Groovy Python Go PERL Shell Scripting
Testing Tools & Libraries
Spock TestNG RESTassured Gson Selenium
Cloud Providers
GKE AWS Azure
CI / Build Systems
CircleCI Jenkins
Containers & Orchestration
Kubernetes Docker Helm Terraform KOPS GKE AKS EKS
Software Testing
White-box Black-box Functional Performance Stress Integration Exploratory Unit Usability
Engineering Management
Coaching Motivation Career Development Performance Mgmt Project Planning
Source Control & Deployment
Git CVS Cloud SaaS On-prem

// education

Education

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
San José State University
San Jose, CA
December 2001

// volunteer

Giving Back

Sacred Heart Community Service
Poverty Alleviation
Save Our Shores
Environment
Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco
Community Housing
Second Harvest Food Bank
Poverty Alleviation
ALS Therapy Development Institute
Health
Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter
Animal Welfare