Braden Kartchner

Technical Lead, software engineering

Slow apps lose users. I rebuilt mine to load 60% faster

I'm Braden Kartchner, a Technical Lead at TechJoy Software who designed a local-first data model that sped up app startup and interactivity by 60%. I also cut image load times by 70% with AWS S3 and CloudFront.

See my work
60%

faster app startup

70%

shorter image load times

80%

less unneeded storage

100%

unit test coverage

About me

A scientist who became an engineer

My degree is a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Brigham Young University, finished in April 2021. I worked as a research assistant in a BYU biochemistry lab from August 2019 to December 2022 and as a graduate teaching assistant for Intro to Bio-organic Chemistry.

I then taught as a substitute teacher in the Alpine School District, and completed the Joy of Coding Academy training program in September 2024. A month later I joined TechJoy as a junior developer. Teaching shows up in how I work: I mentored and onboarded interns on CI/CD, scrum and code reviews.

Selected work

Problems I solved at TechJoy

  1. Data and storage

    Cleaner database, less wasted storage

    I optimized the database schema in Prisma and PostgreSQL, reducing data redundancy by 4x in key fields and models. I also automated stale image invalidation and removal, which cut unnecessary storage by 80% and removed most of the manual effort.

  2. Cross-platform app

    One backend for iOS, Android and web

    I designed a scalable microservices architecture for a new cross-platform application. I built a backend API server that stores and syncs user analytics data across iOS, Android and web, giving the client business analytics and a better user experience.

I break requirements into clear tickets and keep the code reviewed. As Technical Lead I reduce app requirements into workable tickets and coordinate the development work. I review code, merge into main, and give technical feedback and expectations on projects. I design CI/CD pipelines for AWS deployment and services, and I write unit tests so changes are reliable.

Experience

Experience

  1. Technical Lead

    TechJoy Software, Remote

    Refactored legacy VB .NET apps with modern C# and designed the CI/CD pipelines for AWS.

  2. Junior Developer

    TechJoy Software, Remote

  • Technical Lead
  • Software Engineer
  • Full-Stack Developer

Questions

Questions you might ask

Can you work with older codebases?

Yes. At TechJoy I refactored and added functionality to legacy VB .NET apps using modern C#. My skills also include legacy .NET (VB) alongside .NET and C#.

Do you only write front-end code?

No. I work across the stack: React and Next.js on the front end, Express, Nitro and Next API routes on the backend, and PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite databases. I also deploy on AWS with Docker, Terraform and Pulumi.

Contact

Let's talk about what you're building

If you need an engineer who can lead delivery and write the code, I'd like to hear about your team.