Ken Downey

Work

Selected engagements

Enterprise SaaS, Government, consultancy delivery, and personal R&D.

React/TypeScript Design System for City of Portland

City of Portland – Bureau of Technology Services

Senior Frontend Engineer (Contract) — design system architecture & platform

2025-02 – 2025-09 · Remote, USA

Public Sector, Internal Tools, Design System, Accessibility, Component Libraries, screen readers, WCAG, Section 508, USWDS

Highlights

  • Set frontend architecture and technical direction for the design system, including component patterns, API design, theming and tokens, versioning strategy, testing approach, and adoption guidance used across multiple product teams.
  • Architected and implemented @cityofportland/design-tokens as a design-to-code pipeline connecting Figma, Tokens Studio, Zeroheight, GitHub Actions, and automated CSS, JSON, and npm deliverables.
  • Led the creation and rollout of a React/TypeScript component library and design system used across multiple internal and public-facing city applications.
  • Implemented accessible component patterns aligned with WCAG, ARIA, keyboard navigation, and semantic HTML best practices.
  • Developed @cityofportland/component-library (React + USWDS/PGOV) with accessible, reusable components published to npm.
  • Built and maintained npm publishing workflows including semantic versioning, automated builds, changelogs, and versioned releases for downstream teams.
  • Owned frontend testing strategy for the component library, writing unit tests with Jest and React Testing Library.
  • Implemented visual snapshot and accessibility testing to guard regressions before rollout.
  • Created Storybook documentation, live demos, and training sessions to support design system adoption and self-service usage across departments.
  • Established platform governance for reusable components, technical documentation, versioning, implementation standards, and design-to-code parity with UX designers and frontend engineers.
  • Used AI tooling such as Cursor to scaffold components, tests, and documentation while manually reviewing and refining the output.

Tech stack

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Design System
  • Design Tokens
  • Component Library
  • Figma
  • Tokens Studio
  • Zeroheight
  • GitHub Actions
  • Storybook
  • USWDS
  • PGOV
  • HTML5
  • CSS3/SCSS
  • GitHub Workflows
  • npm
  • pnpm
  • Jest
  • Vitest
  • Playwright
  • React Testing Library
  • Visual Snapshot Testing
  • Accessibility Testing
  • WCAG
  • 508 compliance
  • axe
  • CI/CD pipelines

Real Estate Valuation Platform for Lenders and Investors

Clear Capital

Senior Frontend Engineer — B2B SaaS, data-heavy workflows

2019-02 – 2021-02 · Reno, NV / Remote

Real Estate Appraisal Management, High-traffic B2B SaaS, Real Estate Valuation

Highlights

  • Built and maintained React/Redux single-page applications used by lenders and investors to evaluate real estate risk in a B2B SaaS environment.
  • Worked in a large enterprise SaaS codebase, building reusable React/TypeScript UI patterns for dashboards, forms, and data-heavy workflows.
  • Owned features end-to-end, from shaping API contracts and data structures through React UI flows, filters, and review tooling.
  • Collaborated closely with product managers and backend engineers to simplify user workflows while keeping performance and maintainability high.
  • Introduced and maintained unit and integration tests for critical workflows using Jest and React Testing Library.
  • Helped the team adopt a design system and component library, including a Storybook-first development style.
  • Helped onboard and mentor new engineers while improving code quality standards.

Tech stack

  • HTML5
  • CSS3/SCSS
  • React
  • Redux
  • TypeScript
  • Storybook
  • Design Tokens
  • Figma
  • Vitest
  • Playwright
  • Jest
  • React Testing Library

frog design, Intel Corporation, American Express, and more

Assorted Companies

Senior Frontend Engineer (Contract)

2022-05 – 2023-04 · Remote, USA

Design System, Component Libraries, Web Components, Internal Tools · Design System, Financial Services

Highlights

  • Led frontend work on Spark Island, a React + Tailwind design system adopted across multiple Intel internal applications.
  • Designed and implemented accessible, responsive UI primitives with clean, composable APIs.
  • Built React and Web Component based UI primitives so the same design system could be used across multiple application frameworks.
  • Partnered with designers and product engineers to translate Figma patterns into reusable, token-driven components.
  • Created documentation and interactive examples to support adoption, including usage guidelines, prop tables, and demos.
  • Contributed to versioning and rollout strategy so updates to the library could be shipped safely without breaking dependent applications.
  • Contributed to One DLS, a React/TypeScript design system underpinning multiple American Express web applications.
  • Implemented complex cross-product components with clean, composable APIs.
  • Collaborated with designers and product teams to evolve shared patterns while managing breaking changes responsibly.
  • Reviewed pull requests and improved frontend quality practices across the team.
  • Helped teams adopt the system by clarifying usage guidelines, props, and migration paths.

Tech stack

  • HTML5
  • CSS3/SCSS
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Web Components
  • Design System
  • Storybook
  • Jest
  • React Testing Library
  • Playwright
  • Accessibility Testing

Second Brain

Architect & builder (personal project)

Personal OS, AI agents, semantic search, autonomous trading

Highlights

  • Architected and built the entire stack solo: Postgres with pgvector, FastAPI ingest service, MCP server for IDE integration, OpenClaw agent (Cortex) for Telegram capture, Mission Control dashboard, and a genetic-algorithm trading tournament with Claude-powered strategy bots.
  • Ingest, semantic search, and agent orchestration in one system — no off-the-shelf product matched the workflow.
  • Tournament runs automatically every 3 hours; Strategy Master proposes new strategies every 12 hours; 13+ strategies tested and evolved.

Tech stack

  • TypeScript
  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • Postgres
  • pgvector
  • Docker
  • Nginx
  • OpenClaw
  • TanStack Start
  • Claude API

AI Output Governance and Design System Alignment (DesignLock)

Research & prototype

AI output governance, design system contracts, LLM + UI

Highlights

  • Explored how design systems can act as a contract/validation layer for AI-generated UI and content, including prototype work and a YouTube series on AI output governance.
  • Thinks deeply about how AI systems integrate with existing product and design constraints.
  • Understands the need for guardrails, validation, and safe adoption patterns around AI-generated UI.
  • Comfortable experimenting with agentic workflows while keeping humans in the loop.

Tech stack

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • JSON Schema
  • LLM integration

Talage Insurance

Senior Software Engineer (Contract)

2018-08 – 2019-01 · Remote, USA

B2B SaaS, Insurance

Highlights

  • Acted as a true full-stack owner for quoting and policy flows: designed data models, implemented Node.js APIs, built a JavaScript-based PDF generator, and supported rollout and production debugging.
  • Developed React SPAs and Node.js APIs for commercial insurance quoting and policy management.
  • Owned key workflows end-to-end, including UI, endpoints, and data model changes.
  • Designed quoting and policy flows that replaced manual multi-portal processes with a single workflow.

Tech stack

  • HTML5
  • CSS3/SCSS
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Node.js
  • Express.js
  • REST APIs