An aspiring polymath shapeshifting amidst Art, Design, and Engineering. Once described as "poet philosopher" within a "feral tribe of wandering alchemists after the apocolypse". Devotee to the humanities. In an alternate universe, xor: Coureur de Bois, Architect, Athlete, Lego Master Builder.
Hi, my name is Jason Kuhrt. I am a design-minded self-taught functionally-oriented software engineer with over five years experience creating web apps and backend systems. Recently I helped lead development of the realtime distributed cloud system at littleBits that powers the cloudBit. I earned a BFA majoring in design at Concordia University where systems, theory, and society were foundational. I can get a computer to do the right thing, yet I am adept at ideation, interdisciplinary collaboration, design thinking, research, and synthesis.
I am currently based in Montreal and available for contract work. Feel free to get in touch with an opportunity or just a friendly hello!
I am a generalist in the pursuit of elegant systems primarily among the fields of engineering, design, and art. I am driven by a passion to substitute the ogre of chaos for qualities of simplicity and humanity, consistency and honesty, transparency and accountability. To this end, I prioritize opportunities encompassing systemic problem solving.
I have architected a real-time cloud platform, contributed critical design thinking to product, and putted a humble art practice focused on anatomy of systems. As a design-minded generalist engineer I am equipped to help mediate various domain tradeoffs inherent to those interdisciplinary projects concerned with using technology to enhance the human condition.
I built the realtime distributed cloud system at littleBits that powers the cloudBit. The cloudBit was an "Internet of Things" (IoT) product realized as a prized module in the littleBits library. It bridged communication between a user's circuit and the internet. The internet became a physical building block. For a medium otherwise invisible to the senses this bore a potent feeling that we could revolutionize people's relation to connectivity!
To realize this platform I built a number of backend services including a TLS Server, an HTTPS API, a Web Socket API. Tools used included Redis and RethinkDB for data/messaging, Elastic Search for log analysis, AWS/GCP for infrastructure, docker/kubernetes for deployment, OAuth 2. I also built the control app where users setup, managed, and interacted with their cloudBit. Furthermore I helped grow the team, researched advanced platform features, made internal CLI tools, weighed in on product decisions, contributed leadership, and more.