Member of Technical Staff
2026 — PresentAnthropic
San Francisco
Applied AI
Member of Technical Staff · Anthropic
Hello, I'm Kevin.
I know three things well — Forward Deployed Engineering, Applied AI, and International Relations. My goal is to bridge the gap between what artificial intelligence can do and what the world actually needs.
Technology is the means, not the goal.
Built, advised & studied at
About
I speak customer, executive, and engineer.
I'm a Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic, working on Applied AI. I earned my stripes as a Forward Deployed Engineer — built the FDE function at Rippling as its first hire, and led FDE engagements for the most important institutions in the world at Palantir before that. I'm also an avid public speaker across the FDE space.
I'm a William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Scholar who has studied at UC Berkeley, Oxford University, and the American University in Dubai.
My background spans diplomacy, sales, business development, product management, customer success, and software engineering — and forward deployed engineering brings them all together. I build full-stack applications with JavaScript, TypeScript, React, and Python. I love new opportunities and I learn quickly.
I've lived and worked across North America, Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South America, and speak the six official languages of the United Nations.
I've worked in
San Francisco New York Los Angeles Chicago London Bogotá Dubai Bangkok Taipei Mexico City
Career
From the United Nations to the frontier of Artificial Intelligence.
A decade spanning diplomacy, startups, and the world's most important institutions — always in the seat where business problems meet technology.
United Nations Youth Representative
2017 — PresentComprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)
Vienna, Austria
🇺🇳 United Nations Keynote Speaker
UN Science and Technology Conference — Vienna, Austria
UN Youth Conference — Moscow, Russian Federation
📰 Youth Newsroom Reporter: Organized and conducted interviews for UN News with senior executives of the CTBTO
Wolfgang Hoffmann — Negotiator of the CTBT Treaty
Dr. Lassina Zerbo — Executive Secretary of the CTBTO
Currently working with the CTBT team to advocate for full enforcement of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)
Public Speaker
2014 — PresentIndependent
Various locations
🎤 Keynote and panel speaker at enterprise and United Nations events
Selected speaking engagements:
Rippling · SF · Jun 2026Rocketlane · SF · May 2026Andreessen Horowitz · SF · Apr 2026Rippling · SF · Mar 2026Y Combinator · SF · Nov 2025Salesforce · SF · Oct 2025Palantir · Denver · Sep 2022Palantir · London · Jul 2022United Nations · Remote · Nov 2021Palantir · NYC · May 2021General Assembly · Remote · Oct 2020Atlassian · Las Vegas · Apr 2019United Nations · Moscow · Oct 2018United Nations · Vienna · Jul 2017FOCUS · SF · Oct 2016FOCUS · Mexico City · Apr 2016UC Board of Regents · Oakland · Aug 2014
Founding Forward Deployed Engineer
2025 — 2026Rippling
San Francisco Bay Area
🌱 Founding Forward Deployed Engineer at Rippling, first hire. Helped build the FDE function — part consultant, part product manager, part software engineer: a founder-shaped engineer — and grew the team by interviewing and hiring FDEs
🎯 Solved enterprise problems for Rippling's largest and most strategic customers. If there was a SKU the customer needed that Rippling did not have, we invented it. Our north star was the success of our customers on Rippling
🛠️ Created the Slack channel and GitHub repo, authored the first FDE SOPs, and wrote the first 250K lines of FDE code — then built Rippling’s MCP server and 10+ Skills to multiply FDE output and developer experience
Forward Deployed Software Engineer
2021 — 2025Palantir Technologies
LA · NYC · Chicago · London · Denver · DC · Bogotá
Solved open-ended problems at the most important institutions in the world. Owned every stage from discovery to delivery — translating business needs into product capabilities and leading teams to build full-stack software that creates measurable value
🎩 Hats I wore
FDEFull Stack EngineerProduct ManagerData ScientistBusiness DevelopmentConsultantStrategistCustomer Success
⚡️ Technologies
TypeScriptReactPythonSparkPySparkSQLAzureAWSFoundryData PipelinesAIP
Selected work
🍺 Led a multi-million-dollar project to digitize the innovation workflow of a Fortune 500 CPG company. Built five applications in six months, drove adoption from 0 to 800 users in two months, and achieved savings more than 10× the initial expectations
✈️ Led a multi-million-dollar project to improve operational efficiency and safety for a Fortune 500 airline. Digitized safety analysis, automated damage and injury reporting, and improved a major engineering division by 10 hours per engineer per week
♻️ Led development of the first auth-agnostic, stack-agnostic user-information module, and the company's first internal pipeline connecting internal and demo environments
Full Stack Software Engineer
2019 — 2021Globality, Inc.
San Francisco Bay Area
🦄 Globality became a unicorn while I was there. Joined shortly after the garage stage and stayed through Series E, helping raise over $350M in two years for a trailblazing AI enterprise SaaS platform — before ChatGPT existed
Built with JavaScript, React, GraphQL, Node, and Python to create the first AI-powered procurement ecosystem, helping enterprises save up to 40% on eight-figure projects
Highlights
🥇 First place — 2020 Globality Hackathon
Led product engineering for multiple key features, from technical design through production
Improved platform accessibility from 52 to 95 / 100, achieving WCAG AA compliance
Introduced Amplitude analytics across the platform using the delegation pattern
Private Sector Partnerships
2017UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
🇺🇳 Worked in support of refugees during the peak of the 2017 Syrian Civil War and Refugee Crisis, building partnerships with leading corporations and nonprofits on behalf of the United Nations
Partnered with IKEA on a modular refugee shelter — mass-manufacturable, assembled without power tools, easily repaired
Partnered with Facebook on the first VR fundraising campaign for refugees
Partnered with Microsoft to enable digital cash-aid distribution for displaced populations
Developed the Qatar outreach strategy for UNHCR Private Sector Partnerships, authored executive briefings for the High Commissioner, and co-wrote the UNHCR MENA newsletter
Giving back
Leadership beyond the job.
Service has run alongside my career the whole way — mostly sending the ladder down for others, with some representation and advocacy along the way.
2024 — Present
Forward Deployed Engineering Mentor
Independent
1:1 mentorship for people breaking into forward deployed and FDE roles — office hours, mock interviews, and portfolio reviews to open the door into the field.
2019 — Present
Guest Lecturer & Speaker
Universities, bootcamps & community programs
Free talks on the forward deployed engineering and AI career path, for people trying to break into the field.
2020 — Present
Founder
Algobatics — Software Engineering Tutoring
Tutored 50+ software engineering students from underrepresented backgrounds; built curriculum and videos that make CS approachable for non-technical audiences.
2016
US Delegate
US-Mexico Forum for Cooperation
One of 15 Americans selected for high-level discussions with Mexican senators, secretaries, ambassadors, and the leaders of TELMEX, Google Mexico, and Amazon Mexico.
2014 — 2015
Student Advocate to the UC Board of Regents
University of California Student Association
Selected as the sole student representative of 234,464 UC students; advocated on tuition, diversity, and fossil fuel divestment.
2014 — 2015
Philippines Site Leader
Volunteers Around the World
Coordinated a team of 16 establishing 7 mobile clinics across Pampanga, diagnosing and treating 250–300 patients per day.
Education
Three universities, three continents.
University of California, Berkeley
Environmental Science, Economics & Public Policy
David Knutson Scholar — awarded to the top student in the College of Natural Resources graduating class
🌍 UC Berkeley Model United Nations — Director of Business Relations; coordinated a 500-student international conference with participants from 50 universities worldwide
🏛️ Bowles Hall Student Association — President of a 200-student residential community; led the Bowles Hall Phoenix Program as Student Member of the Board
🎓 Student Representative to the UC Board of Regents — represented the 250,000 students across the UC system
👑 Miss Universe at Berkeley — Director of Marketing for UC Berkeley's first beauty pageant
University of Oxford
Sustainable Development, Renewable Energy, Urban Innovation
IARU Santander Scholar — fully funded by Santander Bank to study and research at Oxford
🏆 Oxford Debate Union — participated in three debates and won all three
American University in Dubai
Middle Eastern History, Politics, Culture & Economics
William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Scholar — one of seven Americans awarded this honor; fully funded to live, study, and work in the Middle East
🇦🇪 Founder of the International Business Student Association
Toolkit
More than a tech stack.
Core competencies
Forward Deployed EngineeringApplied AIEnterprise AI Deployment0→1 Team BuildingPlayer-Coach LeadershipTechnical Architecture ReviewPre-Sales Scoping & SOWsCross-Functional Stakeholder ManagementLLM / MCP / Agent ToolingHiring & Developing EngineersEngagement Playbook DesignExecutive PresenceInternational ExpansionIntercultural Leadership
Spoken languages — the six official languages of the United Nations
Chinese
English
Spanish
French
Arabic
Russian
Programming languages
JavaScript
TypeScript
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Ruby
HTML5
CSS3
Frameworks & Data
React
Node.js
Tailwind CSS
PostgreSQL
MongoDB
Git
AI and platforms
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Here's where I think out loud.
FDE Pod is my Substack and podcast. It explores Forward Deployed Engineering, AI, enterprise software, startups — and the builders turning technology into real-world outcomes.
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