# David Lars Ketch

> Senior Software Engineer at XY Planning Network

Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/davidlarsketch

I'm a former academic turned software developer. Writing academic philosophy and writing code share some surprising properties, one finds. The world-renown institutions I trained in gave me an acumen for getting to the root of a problem and doggedly solving for it. That sticks with me in the software world.

## Work Experience
### Senior Software Engineer @ XY Planning Network
Jan 2020 – Present
- Full-stack engineer
- Specific ownership over the primary application's backend code and database
- Architected and developed applications from initial prototyping to end-of-life service and shut-down
- Advised on infrastructure strategies appropriate for different applications' requirements, assisting with migrating between Heroku & AWS
- Developed simple, lean code base following a loose domain-driven design
- Designed and implemented internal web app framework: snoop that here https://github.com/xy-planning-network/trails
- Here's the tech stack I used day in and day out: Go, PostgreSQL, Vue, Typescript, TailwindCSS
- Some fun tech I enjoyed using: sqlc, vite
- Led integrations with vendors: Stripe, HubSpot, Slack, Auth0, Google Suite, Sugar CRM

### Software Developer @ XY Planning Network
Jan 2020 – Jan 2020

### Technical Operations Developer @ Maize Analytics
Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 | Nashville, Tennessee
- Managed and recruited team of 5 developers covering server operations, data integration and engineering, and development of internal tools solving technical problems outside the core application
- Coded application features after collecting and synthesizing business requirements on the primary Python/Django, Redis and PostgreSQL application
- Deployed Ubuntu & RHEL servers on-premise and AWS through virtual disk images (OVAs & AMIs)
- Planned and initiated project moving from Chef scripts to an Ansible-based server provisioning strategy in order to pay off technical debt and align with development team skillset
- Debugged & resolved site reliability issues through monitoring resource utilization, system and application logs
- Researched, designed and developed internal tools for ETL pipelines in Go relying on external services such as PostgreSQL, AWS RDS, RabbitMQ, AWS SQS & Redis
- Implemented new clients by crafting SQL scripts to extract EMR and HR data (Epic, Meditech, Cerner, Lawson, Medhost, etc.)
- Performed data analysis to advise on feature adoption for clients, continuing feature development, and new feature requests
- Coordinated ETL pipelines through bash and Python scripting per customer deployment, conforming multiple data sources to standard

### Apprentice Software Developer @ Nashville Software School
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Nashville, TN
Full-time, in-person, full-stack software development bootcamp.

- Group & solo projects building real-world product solutions
- Source & version control: Git & GitHub
- Modern JavaScript development, ES6 and beyond, 
- Modern Python fundamentals honing in on DRY, modularized & maintainable code
- JavaScript libraries for DOM manipulation & AJAX calls: jQuery
- JavaScript frameworks for single-page applications: AngularJS
- RESTful API development: Express & Django REST Framework
- Secure API authentication through OAuth, OAuth 2.0
- Created & modified database design/content using SQLite & PostgreSQL; Django ORM, Node.js ORM Sequelize
- Test-Driven Development: Mocha & Chai (JS), unittest (Python)
- Templated & server-generated HTML: Handlebars, Pug
- User authentication: Firebase, Node.js (Passport) & Django
- Task automation: Grunt, Browserify, linting
- HTML5: canvas, modern semantic markup
- CSS3: animations, flexbox, grid
- Custom CSS frameworks: SASS, Bootstrap, Materialize, BEM Methodology

### Research Assistant @ KU Leuven
Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | Leuven, Belgium
General purpose research assistant at KU Leuven, supplying short-term research & editorial support to a diversity of teams on an as-needed basis

KU Leuven Law School
- Collated & quantitatively analyzed court decisions from top- level EU courts as key team member of a world-class research group fulfilling their detailed-oriented, error-free expectations
- Troubleshot research tools and surveys by providing precise, clear feedback to other team members based upon first-hand implementation.

Political Science Dept.
- Perfected copy from academic blog posts to book-long publications by non-native English speakers
- Consulted with professors on goals for each project, aligning their technical writing through suggesting edits 

Medical School
- Transcribed interviews between researchers and medical professionals about sensitive medical subjects, inserting minor translations as needed

Computer Science Dept.
- Global marketing research to advertise a brand-new master's program at the computer science department
- Brainstormed, focused, and formalized marketing goals


## Education
### Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Philosophy
KU Leuven
Jan 2014 – Jan 2016

### Master’s Degree in Philosophy
KU Leuven
Jan 2013 – Jan 2014

### Bachelor’s Degree in Major: Philosophy; Minor: Political Science
Wheaton College
Jan 2009 – Jan 2012

### Study abroad in Philosophy
University of Oxford
Jan 2011 – Jan 2011


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/davidlarsketch

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Source: https://flows.cv/davidlarsketch
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/davidlarsketch/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-03-23