Just a queer web developer living in San Francisco. I spend my time eating ššÆ, traveling to far off places š·, playing video/board games š®, emojis š š§š¼āāļø and creating fun things with gifs.
Iām most passionate about projects that serve the underserved. That has manifested itself in working on community projects for queer youth, building healthcare.gov and decreasing the burden of applying for government benefits (medicare/medicaid/SNAP).
Engineering lead at Nava, a public benefit corporation creating software that helps government create simple and accessible services for everyone. I was fortunate enough to lead a diverse team of talented engineers and designers building tools for government to better serve everyone. Primarily focused on services that improve the social safety net.
The first team I lead was focused on rebuilding the healthcare.gov application experience. You can read about some of the work here. I was responsible for the product roadmap, as well as leading the engineering team of 10 full stack and infrastructure engineers. We successfully shipped an entirely new experience built on React, Node and other modern technologies paying extra attention to the user experience.
The second team was focused on working with the State of Vermont as part of the Integrated Benefits effort. I worked directly with the CTO to change the way that Vermonters uploaded documents and ultimately applied for benefits in Vermont. The pilot phase of this project was launched in October 2018.
Was a Code for America fellow, working with the New York City Mayor's Office of Operations. Conducted research and built tools for social workers to better understand and help their clients. Launched open source projects like CityBook for cities to better organize their resources.
Founded a company building online social games and safe spaces for queer youth.
š¦ twitter @keithkurson
š blog @keithkurson
š» github @keithk
šø instagram @keithk
š¶ Subeta: One of the largest virtual pet sites on the internet, founded by me over 10 years ago š. With over 100,000 currently active users, it continues to be the second most popular virtual pet site on the internet today.
šļø Charahub: Site with over 250,000 users uploading their art and creative writing.