Ryan Kara

Senior Frontend Engineer

I build scalable product experiences, frontend platforms, and high-performance web applications—and lead the technical work that carries them reliably into production.12+ years across React and TypeScript architecture, product engineering, performance, and cross-functional technical leadership.

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Engineering case studies

Leading complex initiatives from architecture through production

Dropbox Dash · Growth & onboarding platform

From sales-managed setup to self-serve onboarding

Led end-to-end development of Dash’s first in-product onboarding workflow, replacing a sales-managed process with an experience that reached 54% completion.

Architecture & executionBuilt reusable onboarding primitives and the orchestration needed to make multi-step setup observable, resilient, and safe to roll out. Continued as technical owner after launch, supporting reliability and iteration.

Technical leadershipCoordinated 4–6 engineers and partners from five additional teams across architecture, implementation, rollout, and production support. At least four additional Dash teams adopted the shared platform.

Welcome modalsTooltip toursConnector upsellsEmpty statesOrchestration guards

Dropbox Dash · Performance architecture

Protecting a critical path with distributed caching

Identified eligibility checks as a latency risk, then designed a distributed caching strategy spanning 4–5 services at 1K–3K QPS.

Systems designReduced request latency from 80–140 ms to 48–80 ms while accounting for expiration policies, consistency, service boundaries, and critical-path reliability.

Operational readinessAdded tests, structured logging, dashboards, alerts, and rollout safeguards so the performance improvement could be introduced and operated with confidence.

Experience

12+ years building product and platform software

View full résumé ↗

Dropbox

Fullstack Product Software Engineer

May 2022–Present

Lead frontend architecture and end-to-end delivery for growth and onboarding in Dropbox Dash. Build reusable React and TypeScript platforms, improve critical-path performance and reliability, mentor engineers, and partner across Product, Design, and Engineering from planning through production support.

PNC Bank

Software Engineer, Senior

September 2019–May 2022

Modernized enterprise banking workflows with Angular applications and .NET Core REST APIs. Partnered with business and technical stakeholders on scalable architecture while mentoring developers and improving engineering practices.

Hyland Software

Developer II

January 2014–September 2019

Built production web applications with Angular and ASP.NET and helped multiple teams transition to and adopt Angular, supporting shared patterns and maintainable client architecture.

Hyland Software

Software Development Intern

Summer 2012 and Summer 2013

Built internal prototypes and applications with ASP.NET, C#, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and XSLT across two summer internships.

Flagship independent project

RunMark: production scheduling built end to end

Founder & Lead Engineer · 2026–Present

A constraint-aware scheduling and operations platform for process manufacturers. I own the frontend, backend, database, and infrastructure as the sole engineer.

Constraint-aware, multi-line production scheduling
Spreadsheet order ingestion and validation
Production schedule visualization
Inventory and fulfillment workflows
Traceability label generation
AI-assisted capacity and scheduling analysis

Read the project story Visit RunMark ↗

Independent projects

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Kara Aerials

Drone photography and videography site showcasing aerial captures of landscapes, events, real estate, and commercial projects.

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Beavercreek Youth Softball Association

League management platform supporting registration, schedules, and community engagement for families across Beavercreek, OH.

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Cleveland Shetland Sheepdog Club

Club website serving members with event information, resources, and community updates.

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Technical expertise

Senior engineering capabilities, not a keyword cloud

Frontend depth · Full-product ownership

Frontend Architecture

Scalable interfaces and shared UI foundations

ReactTypeScriptAngularComponent architectureDesign systemsAccessibility

Performance & Reliability

Fast, resilient experiences on critical product paths

Rendering & profilingData fetching & cachingState managementError handlingBrowser storage

Product Engineering

Technical ownership tied to customer outcomes

Onboarding & growthCross-functional deliveryTechnical planningMentoring & reviews

Backend

Services and APIs that support complete products

REST APIs.NET CoreASP.NETC#

Testing & Tooling

Quality and developer velocity built into delivery

Testing strategyStorybookJestReact Testing LibraryPlaywright / CypressVite / WebpackGit

About

Product-minded, platform-aware, and close to the code

I’m a Senior Frontend Engineer focused on React and TypeScript architecture, design systems, onboarding and growth, performance, and reliability. I lead through technical planning, cross-functional alignment, mentoring, implementation, and production support.Outside my full-time work, I build RunMark independently—owning the product from interface and services through data and infrastructure.More about how I work →

Let’s connect

Looking for senior frontend leadership that stays hands-on?

If your team is solving complex product, platform, or performance problems, I’d be glad to talk about the work and where I can contribute.

Contact Ryan LinkedIn ↗