Software engineer who works on infrastructure distributed systems, and anything interesting that he can get his hands on.
I build apps, open-source tools, and curriculum.
📍 Chicago · Remote-friendly
- Oatmeal MVP — a production-ready web app built end-to-end, focusing on clean architecture, maintainability, and real-world delivery constraints
- Potluck Planner — a lightweight application built to support coordination and shared planning for family/community use
- Hackathon Starter Kit — a reusable project scaffold and tooling to help teams move quickly from idea to working software
- Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) Curriculum — designing and delivering hands-on software engineering curriculum focused on core principles, systems thinking, and portfolio-ready projects
I care about building systems that are reliable, understandable, and easy for others to build on.
I value incremental change, clear communication, and shared ownership over cleverness.
Pinned below are a mix of:
- Personal applications
- Open-source collaborations
- Developer tools and learning projects
Each project README focuses on the problem, tradeoffs, and design decisions involved.
| Area | Details |
|---|---|
| Languages | Java, Python, JavaScript / TypeScript, Kotlin, SQL |
| Backend & Distributed Systems | REST APIs, GraphQL, event-driven architectures, streaming systems (Kafka), asynchronous processing, data pipelines |
| Data & Storage | PostgreSQL, relational data modeling, migrations, Elasticsearch, schema design (SQL & NoSQL) |
| Cloud & Infrastructure | Cloud-native services (AWS), containers (Docker), Kubernetes (usage & deployment), infrastructure-as-code concepts, CI/CD pipelines, Git-based workflows |
| Observability & Reliability | OpenTelemetry, metrics, logging, alerting, SLOs, postmortems, incident response, performance analysis |
| Security & Engineering Practices | Identity & access management, secrets management, secure-by-default design, code reviews, RFCs, technical documentation |
| AI, Tooling & Enablement | LLM integrations, AI-assisted development workflows, internal developer tools & CLIs, prompt and context engineering |
| Community & Education | Curriculum design, mentorship, technical coaching, open-source collaboration, community-driven software projects |
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/terrellmckinney
- Email: terrell.mckinney@gmail.com