David Kobia

David Kobia

Head of Engineering · Principal/Staff Engineer · AI-Native Systems Architect

Hands-on engineering leader and full-stack builder who still ships production code. I architect and personally implement AI-native systems end to end — RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, LLM evaluation, backend services, infrastructure, and security. I move fluidly between writing critical code as an individual contributor and leading high-performing teams, and I have a track record of taking ambiguous problems to scaled, production-grade products used by hundreds of thousands of people.

01Work

Trustworthy

AI-native consumer platform that organizes, secures, and answers questions about families' most sensitive information.

Designed and implemented the RAG pipeline, agentic document workflows, and the LLM evaluation framework behind The Family Operating System®.
  • Retrieval & Chunking
  • Vector Search & Embeddings
  • Prompt & Context Engineering
  • Document Classification & Extraction
  • Workflow State Management
  • Automated Evals
  • Human-in-the-Loop Review
  • Observability
  • Evaluation Harnesses
  • SOC 2
  • Encryption
  • Pen Testing & Bug Bounty

Kidplay Technologies

A portfolio of consumer parenting apps with over 500,000 combined downloads, built solo.

Sole engineer, designer, and operator of a multi-app portfolio (Chore Boss, Doggy Time, Potty Whiz, Kid Hop, Fever Whiz) — owning the entire stack solo: cross-platform mobile (iOS, Android, watchOS), backend, sync infrastructure, cloud, analytics, and support.
  • Flutter
  • Swift / watchOS
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Cross-Device Sync
  • CI/CD
  • Observability
  • Subscriptions
  • Analytics

StreamLabs Water Monitoring

Smart-home water-monitoring platform sold at Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy, and Amazon.

Architected, designed, and implemented a scalable system serving tens of thousands of users and hundreds of thousands of connected devices, including third-party APIs serving enterprise customers.
  • Connected Devices
  • Real-Time Telemetry
  • Event-Driven Systems
  • Scalability & Performance
  • REST APIs
  • Partner Integrations
  • DevOps Automation
  • Cost Optimization

Ushahidi

Open-source crisis-mapping platform used in 100+ countries, reaching 20M+ people.

Co-founded and led the global team delivering open-source web and mobile technologies translated into 30+ languages, for clients including the United Nations.

  • SMS Integration
  • Web & Mobile Apps
  • Geospatial Mapping
  • Real-Time Visualization
  • Open-Source Community
  • Localization (30+ Languages)

02Experience

Head of Engineering / Trustworthy

2020 - Present

AI-native consumer platform ("The Family Operating System®") that organizes, secures, and answers questions about families' most sensitive information.

  • Architect and personally build core AI systems — designed and implemented the RAG pipeline that turns unstructured family documents into accurate, grounded answers, including retrieval, chunking, embedding, and context-design strategy.
  • Built agentic workflows and state management that autonomously classify, extract, link, and file documents and drive AI-generated outcomes for customers.
  • Designed an LLM output evaluation and quality-control framework — automated and human-in-the-loop evals to measure accuracy, catch regressions, and gate releases of AI features.
  • Own advanced prompt engineering and context design across the product, and built internal AI tooling for assisted project management and delivery forecasting.
  • Established LLMOps/MLOps practices — versioning, evaluation harnesses, observability, and safe rollout for LLM-driven features in production.
  • Drive a security-first engineering posture in a product handling highly sensitive data: own SOC 2 audits, coordinate third-party penetration testing, run a bug-bounty program, and design encrypted, privacy-preserving data architecture.
  • Lead the engineering organization — hiring, technical strategy, architecture, and standards — while remaining hands-on in the most critical and complex parts of the codebase.

Founder & Principal Engineer / Kidplay Technologies

2022 - Present

Independent venture — a portfolio of consumer parenting apps designed, built, and operated single-handedly.

  • Sole engineer, designer, and operator of a multi-app portfolio (Doggy Time, Potty Whiz, and more) with over 500,000 combined downloads — owning the entire stack solo: cross-platform mobile (iOS, Android, watchOS), backend, sync infrastructure, cloud, analytics, and support.
  • Demonstrates sustained ability to take products from concept to scaled, revenue-generating release as a pure individual contributor.

Engineering Manager / Lab1886 (Daimler / Mercedes-Benz)

2018 - 2019

Corporate innovation incubator validating and building new digital ventures.

  • Served as full-stack developer and technical lead on rapid proofs of concept, owning architecture and technology stack decisions.
  • Performed technical validation of startup ventures and stood up engineering teams to take concepts forward.

Principal Systems Architect / StreamLabs (Reliance Worldwide)

2016 - 2020

Smart-home water-monitoring hardware + software platform; product now sold at Home Depot, Lowe's, Best Buy, and Amazon.

  • Architected, designed, and implemented a scalable system serving tens of thousands of users and hundreds of thousands of connected devices.
  • Designed and built third-party APIs serving enterprise customers, and led performance, scalability, and cost-optimization work.
  • Built and led a cross-functional engineering team (backend, embedded, mobile, frontend, QA, DevOps) and drove automation across solution delivery.

Director of Software / BRCK

2014 - 2016

Rugged, self-powered connectivity hardware + software for low-infrastructure environments.

  • Led planning, design, development, and deployment of firmware and cloud software powering a remotely managed mobile WiFi hotspot.
  • Delivered an education-technology platform and a content management / distribution network for streaming media from edge devices.
  • Built and led a globally distributed hardware and software engineering team.

Director of Technology & Co-Founder / Ushahidi

2008 - 2014

Open-source crisis-mapping and crowdsourcing platform used worldwide.

  • Built and led a global team delivering open-source web and mobile technologies used in 100+ countries, translated into 30+ languages, reaching 20M+ people.
  • Delivered solutions for clients including the United Nations, U.S. Southern Command, and Conservation International.
  • Advised and helped launch spin-off organizations including iHub (Nairobi's technology innovation hub) and Gearbox (a hardware-entrepreneur ecosystem).

03About

[ About copy pending - added via /admin ]

04Toolkit

AI / ML

  • RAG
  • vector search & embeddings
  • agentic workflows
  • LLM evaluation
  • prompt & context engineering
  • LLMOps/MLOps
  • AI workflow orchestration

Languages

  • Python
  • TypeScript / JavaScript
  • Go
  • Swift
  • Kotlin
  • Java
  • C

Backend & Web

  • Node.js
  • React
  • Next.js
  • REST/GraphQL APIs
  • microservices
  • event-driven systems (Kafka, Kinesis)

Data

  • PostgreSQL
  • DynamoDB
  • Redis
  • vector databases
  • Elasticsearch

Cloud & DevOps

  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud
  • infrastructure-as-code
  • CI/CD
  • containerization
  • observability

Security

  • SOC 2
  • penetration testing
  • bug-bounty programs
  • encryption
  • secure data architecture
  • threat modeling

Mobile

  • iOS / Swift
  • Android / Kotlin
  • Flutter
  • React Native
  • watchOS
  • cross-platform sync

05Education

Computer Science / University of Alabama at Birmingham

Recognition

  • MIT Director's Fellow
  • MIT Technology Review TR35 (Top Innovator Under 35)
  • MIT Technology Review Humanitarian of the Year
  • Fast Company Most Creative People in Business
  • Knight-Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism

06Contact

david@kobia.me