# Alaina Kafkes > Senior iOS Engineer Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/alaina Hi there! I'm Alaina. I currently work as a senior iOS engineer at Calm. Outside of work, I enjoy running through urban parks, cooking plant-based meals, and deepening my word nerdiness through books, blogs, and «blagues». I aspire to someday adopt a Samoyed (or other equally amazing dog!). ## Work Experience ### Senior Software Engineer (iOS) @ Calm Jan 2022 – Present ### Software Engineer (iOS) @ Calm Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 ### Software Engineer II (iOS) @ Medium Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Software Engineer I (iOS) @ Medium Jan 2017 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Codecademy Pro Advisor @ Codecademy Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Greater New York City Area Assisted new coders in debugging syntax errors, understanding software engineering concepts, and pursuing their own independent technical projects, all while encouraging them to achieve their professional and personal programming goals. Worked with Python, JavaScript, Ruby, HTML/CSS. ### UX (iOS) Engineer & Research Assistant @ Delta Lab Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Greater Chicago Area Worked on Zombies Interactive, an iOS application that enhances a user's running experience by placing them in a zombie apocalypse scenario and by crowdsourcing data about their surroundings in order to spawn novel scenarios during their run. • Built and user-tested an algorithm that triggered the insertion of new scenarios into a user's zombie apocalypse experience based on known nearby objects, which led to an increase in data fidelity about objects in the user's environment. • Produced a list of design principles for the implementation of these "scaffolded" scenarios. • Participated in experimental "agile research studio" methodology, which meant design, implementation, and testing of at least one Zombies Interactive feature per two-week sprint. Worked with Swift, ExperienceKit API. ### Remote Developer Evangelist (Clarifai Champion) @ Clarifai Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | Greater New York City Area Among 40 students selected as remote developer evangelists & ambassadors for Clarifai, a deep learning image/video recognition start-up. Named one of the top 3 champions. • Coded and open-sourced Clarifaing Gender Roles, a data visualization that depicts the gender discrepancy in image search results for queries like "engineer" or "doctor." • Oversaw the Ladies Storm Hackathons tutorial series (https://github.com/Ladies-Storm-Hackathons/Tutorials), and contributed two online tutorials. • Maintained a popular technical blog on Medium (https://medium.com/@alainakafkes) with posts that have been featured on Technically Speaking (https://tinyletter.com/techspeak) and FreeCodeCamp (https://medium.freecodecamp.com/). Worked with Python, d3.js, Clarifai API, Bing API. ### Computer Science Teaching Assistant @ Northwestern University Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 EECS 211 (Introduction to Computer Programming) • Assisted students of introductory programming course in creating a network for their term project. • Resolved student questions in homework assignments and about the concepts of object-oriented programming. EECS 212 (Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science) • Mediated student discussion about introductory algorithms topics such as graph theory, probability, combinatorics, and simple cryptography. • Graded problem sets and examinations with sufficient feedback to catalyze student improvement. Worked with C++, LaTeX. ### Software Engineering Intern @ GE Healthcare Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 • Wrote 400+ lines of code for the Media Manager web application, which expedites the transfer of mobile images & videos to patient data in the Centricity Clinical Archive. • Spearheaded the creation of a mock server to prevent end-to-end testing with sensitive patient information. Halved web app load time. • Pitched sentiment analysis solution to eliminate customer experience mishaps to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO); voted most innovative of eight intern teams. • Modularized TripAdvisor-esque guidebook generator for employees traveling to other GE locations (dubbed VoyaGE) as a side project. Worked with AngularJS 2, NodeJS, ExpressJS, TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML/CSS. ### MRSEC REU Intern @ National Science Foundation Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 • Coded scripts that computationally optimized aluminum-biomolecule conjugates in order to find a cheap alternative to gold and silver in biodiagnostics. • Presented findings to 50+ student researchers and professors at a National Science Foundation symposium. • One of twenty budding engineers selected for a prestigious National Science Foundation grant. Worked with Python, Density Functional Theory (DFT) software. ### Research Assistant @ Northwestern University Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 • Analyzed and quantified the leaching of barium and other heavy metals out of foreign pottery glazes to determine if they were truly "food-safe." • Directed and trained two undergraduate research assistants as the lead undergraduate student researcher on this project. • Earned certifications in cutting-edge materials science & art chemistry technologies. ## Education ### Computer Science in Kaplan Humanities Scholars Program (3.7 GPA) Northwestern University Jan 2013 – Jan 2017 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alainakafkes --- Source: https://flows.cv/alaina JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/alaina/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-22