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Kenneth Toley

@kennethtoley

Engineering leader building AI-native developer platforms, DevEx tooling, and CI/CD infrastructure that accelerate velocity and reduce friction.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I'm looking to build AI-native developer platforms, test automation frameworks, and internal products that reduce cognitive load and accelerate engineering velocity. I thrive in roles where I can shape quality strategy, deliver modern automation systems, and grow high-performing engineering teams.

I am an engineering leader with 15+ years of experience leading developer platforms, engineering productivity, CI/CD infrastructure, and quality engineering organizations at Weber, Y Media Labs, Lumosity, Dictionary.com, and Xero.

I specialize in building self-service internal developer platforms (IDPs) and paved-path automation that eliminate engineering friction, improve DORA metrics, and accelerate release velocity.

Key Career Highlights:

• Weber, Inc.: Engineered an agentic AI "Test Co-Pilot" platform that automated specification reviews, test authoring, and publishing. The platform reduced time-to-value by 80% and saved 20+ hours per sprint. Also built an AI log-analysis engine applying semantic clustering (OpenSearch/Gremlin) to streamline defect discovery across mobile and firmware platforms.

• Lumosity: Led an organization-wide migration to GitLab CI/CD and architected self-service ephemeral test environments (Review Apps) that boosted testing throughput 5x and reduced pipeline build times from 2 hours down to 10 minutes.

• Y Media Labs: Scaled global engineering teams across white-label mobile platforms, integrating automated Azure DevOps CI/CD gating to cut release cycle times to near-zero.

Current Focus:

Hands-on development and architecture of agentic AI platforms—including Story Turtle and an early-stage localization platform utilizing Model Context Protocol (MCP)—while advising Calidad AI on its GxP auditing solution.

I am passionate about turning complex developer pain points into practical AI automation, mentoring engineering leaders, and creating high-velocity, quality-first platform cultures.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Independent AI Product Builder

Current

Self Employed

Jan 2026 - Present (8 months)

Leading product development from the ground up for an AI-powered reading coach application, managing the end-to-end product lifecycle including UI/UX design, technical architecture, full-stack development.
Spearheading system architecture and hands-on development for an early-stage AI localization platform, focusing on agent-driven crawling, and Agent evaluation pipelines.

AI Product Development Full Stack Developer UI UX Testing

Current

Co-Founder & COO

Current

Calidad AI

Dec 2018 - Present (7 years 9 months)

Led end-to-end product management for an AI-powered GxP auditing platform, including user research, feature design, and testing. Built digitized checklist and automated reporting tools, boosting auditor productivity.

AI Product Management GxP Audit User Testing Reporting

Sr QA Manager (Eng Productivity & DevEx)

Weber, Inc.

May 2022 - Jan 2026 (3 years 8 months)

Directed an Eng Prod org of 10 staff and 2 global partners supporting 16 Mobile, Firmware, and Hardware product lines.
Engineered an AI "Test Co-Pilot" automating spec reviews and test authoring—cutting time-to-value by 80% and saving 20+ hrs/sprint
Built an AI log engine (OpenSearch, Gremlin) using semantic clustering for defect triage
Built self-service S3 repos and HiL labs to shrink OTA delays

QA Manager (Mobile Platform & DevEx)

Y Media Labs

Aug 2020 - Mar 2022 (1 year 7 months)

Led a global team of 10 delivering mobile products and developer platforms for Fortune 500 clients.

• Architected mobile automation frameworks and Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines, cutting build-and-deploy cycle time from 1 hr to near-zero.
• Defined the roadmap for a unified mobile platform across iOS/Android.
• Led BDD transition and guided ICs into Lead and PM roles.

Automation iOS Android Azure DevOps CI CD BDD Agile Selenium Appium Quality Engineering

Director of QA (Platform Eng&DevEx Lead)

Lumosity

Sep 2017 - Sep 2019 (2 years)

Managed 8 engineers and PMs building platform infra and release tooling.

Led company-wide migration to GitLab CI/CD, modernizing deployment
Built self-service ephemeral test environments (GitLab Review Apps), boosting throughput 5x
Optimized pipeline infra (AWS, MacStadium, K8s), cutting build times from 2 hrs to 10 mins
Mentored reports into Lead, TPM, and Scrum Master roles

CI CD Gitlab Ephemeral Environments Kubernetes AWS MacStadium Quality Engineering Agile

Director Prod QE (Eng Infra & Release)

Dictionary.com

Nov 2015 - Sep 2017 (1 year 10 months)

Reported to CTO; managed global engineering team (9 reports, US/Poland).

Partnered with Architect to implement GitLab CI, serverless AWS Lambda, and auto-scaling Docker environments
Piloted ML testing platform to resolve performance bottlenecks
Defined pipeline health metrics and custom monitoring dashboards
Upskilled 4 of 5 manual testers into platform automation engineers

Testing Gitlab CI AWS Lambda Docker Serverless Testing Automation BDD Agile 12 Factor Monitoring

Director of Quality (Platform & Release)

Xero

Jan 2014 - Nov 2015 (1 year 10 months)

Managed global org of 18 reports across US, AU, and NZ.

Directed platform strategy across SysOps, DevOps, and Quality in 4 time zones for Global Payroll systems
Hired first Release Engineer; automated backend and DB schema drift tests to improve post-release health
Standardized tooling via TestRail migration
Scaled team 30% and mentored a Lead to Manager

TestRail Global Team Management Agile Quality Engineering Release Engineering