# Kelly Zhang > Software Development Engineer at Amazon Location: Seattle, Washington, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/kellyzhang Full stack SDE II with 3+ years at Amazon and a background in Computer Science and Biochemistry - a combination that gives me a unique lens on problems where technical depth and domain knowledge intersect. At Amazon, I've led performance-critical systems (40x latency reduction, 82% YoY usage growth), shipped features on services handling 251M+ monthly requests, and redesigned enterprise LMS integration workflows via LTI 1.3. I take pride in my technical leadership, architectural rigor, long-term system health, and mentoring of junior engineers along the way. I care deeply about accessible, equitable software and spearheaded a WCAG 2.1 AA compliance initiative across customer-facing surfaces. My core stack includes TypeScript, React, Node.js, and AWS. I am passionate about mission-driven, AI-focused engineering and always open to connecting with fellow engineers and leaders. ## Work Experience ### L5 Software Development Engineer @ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Jan 2024 – Present | Seattle, WA Promoted to SDE II after serving as tech lead for a large-scale platform migration moving https://skillbuilder.aws from a third-party to first-party learning management system, coordinating mock data integration across 7 teams to enable UAT and launch. - Served as Tech Lead for a large-scale enterprise platform feature, authoring low-level design documentation adopted as the team's gold standard and coordinating security reviews, UAT, and penetration testing across 7 partner teams - Architected and shipped an automated license provisioning workflow handling complex state transitions at scale, reducing manual administrative overhead for enterprise customers - Contributed features to a high-scale GraphQL/DynamoDB content service handling 251M+ monthly resolver requests, including multi-language localization, search integrations, a shipped pagination fix, and EOL email notification workflows - Redesigned the enterprise LMS onboarding process for third-party platforms via LTI 1.3 (educational interoperability standard), consolidating tribal knowledge into documentation, defined SLAs, and a tracking system that reduced ad-hoc processes to a repeatable workflow averaging ~4.16 hours ### L4 Software Development Engineer @ Amazon Web Services (AWS) Jan 2022 – Jan 2024 | Boston, MA Early member of a newly formed team chartered to deliver a delightful first-party search and recommendations experience for https://skillbuilder.aws, a consumer-facing learning platform serving millions of users. - Led end-to-end design and implementation of a pre-authenticated search system, achieving 179% improvement in search relevancy and 40x latency reduction (800ms → 20ms), contributing to 82% YoY increase in search usage - Built reusable frontend components powering a personalized recommendations system, addressing a content discovery gap where 80% of engagement was concentrated in just 2.5% of a 5,000+ course catalog - Spearheaded WCAG 2.1 AA compliance initiative, conducting accessibility audits, remediating customer-facing components, and leading knowledge shares with partner teams - Established search launch infrastructure including CloudFormation feature flag templates, rollback/rollforward runbooks, and E2E and canary test suites - Mentored 5 engineers through structured onboarding, authoring guides recognized by teammates as significantly reducing ramp-up time ### Undergraduate Student Researcher @ Van Hooser Laboratory Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | Brandeis University, Waltham, MA ### Information Technology Service Desk Level II Student Technician @ Brandeis University Jan 2018 – Jan 2021 | Waltham, Massachusetts, United States - Evaluated and diagnosed software/hardware issues through identification of appropriate resolutions for device repairs, account management, security, network troubleshooting, printer errors, and network shares. - Collaborated with other team members and cross-functionally collaborated with other teams within the university via Jira and Slack. - Supervised and mentored new hires in handling walk-in appointments, phone calls, and answering tickets. ### Project Intern @ STEM-Away Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 Project Management Lead and Project Intern for STEM-Away Bioinformatics Team 1. Used R and RStudio to analyze GEO datasets for research of lung cancer (GSE19804) and colorectal cancer (GSE4107). ### Undergraduate Student Researcher @ New England Biolabs Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Waltham, Massachusetts, United States During my summer internship at the Fulton-Lai Lab, I worked with my mentor to conduct 18 experiments over 10 weeks to investigate the life cycle of Tetramitus rostratus, an amoeboflagellate. We varied 9 different conditions, informed from research papers I had analyzed on this organism. By the end of the summer, we discovered that T. rostratus continued differentiation from amoeba to flagellate under ambient oxygen and identified the process of differentiation from analysis of microscope observation and cell counts. These findings were significant, as they indicated that T. rostratus was a potential toolbox for the study epigenetics and molecular genetics. I presented my summer's work during the Brandeis University Summer SciFest poster session (Aug 2019) and I later gave a half hour pitch on this prospective project at New England Biolabs, Inc., titled "Developing the Toolbox to Uncover the Epigenetic Mysteries of a Most Unusual Amoeboflagellate, Tetramitus rostratus." ### App Design Boot Camp @ Brandeis University Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Waltham, Massachusetts, United States - Acquired experience working with Powershell and coding in HTML and Javascript - Collaborated in a team of 6 to construct a website prototype for a virtual reality social media platform ### Junior Auxiliary Candy Striper @ Hoag Hospital Jan 2015 – Jan 2018 | Newport Beach, California, United States Junior Auxiliary Board [‘17 - ‘18] CCU Committee [‘15 - ‘18] - Gained familiarity with all Junior Auxiliary committees and stepped into leadership and speaking roles when necessary - Attended monthly board meetings and collaborated in discussions on program improvements - Delivered empty medical charts, aided visitors in locating specific hospital areas or services, and provided companionship and comfort to patients and visitors ### Biotechnology @ National Student Leadership Conference Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Berkeley, California, United States - Explored multiple roles in biotechnology, including designing a 3D printed heart valve, wiring a remote control to a live cockroach, and performing genetic laboratory tests - Collaborated with a team to devise and present a topical pain reliever with the intention of preventing the common issue of addiction ### Mathematical and Computational Research in Biology @ University of Chicago Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Chicago, Illinois, United States - Utilized scientific principles and the Visual Molecular Dynamics program to grasp interpretation of three dimensional molecular models - Analyzed genome sequences using R and Unix/Linux - Researched the effects of mutations in the prion protein (PRNP) gene on the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease ### Biotechnology Experience Program Volunteer @ Amgen Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Fullerton, California, United States - Prepared hundreds of agar plates, gel cups, dye aliquots, and nutrient broth tubes for educational use in local high school and community college laboratories - Trained student participants in basic research skills, such as pouring plates, micropipetting, diluting solutions, and running gel electrophoresis ### Team Member @ Chick-fil-A-Franchise Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | Irvine, California, United States - Developed high standards of customer service and maintained clear communication during high-volume, fast-paced operations - Performed routine duties such as delivering meals, stocking supplies, and cleaning bathrooms, workstations, and dining areas ## Education ### Bachelor of Arts - BA in Computer Science Brandeis University Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 ### Bachelor of Science - BS in Biochemistry Brandeis University Jan 2018 – Jan 2022 ### Trabuco Hills High School Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 ### University High School Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kellyzhangl --- Source: https://flows.cv/kellyzhang JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/kellyzhang/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-29