Kristen Manning Email & Phone Number

Solopreneur helping early-stage startups to automate operations, leverage technical tools, and launch MVPs.

Led the engineering function and grew the team from 22 to 31 contributors. Built an engineering culture of cross-functional collaboration, iterative development, and deep understanding of business/user context.

As Tech Lead of the Platform team (2021), charted technical strategy to address the growing divergence between technical systems and business direction. Led a project to replace foundational data structures in order to better support the present-day feature set, and delivered the project without disrupting the end-user experience. Alongside the team’s product manager, led team operations and partnered with cross-functional stakeholders.

Architected and implemented Brilliant for Educators (2020), which has grown to reach over 10,000 teachers.

Joined as first full-time developer of PsyNeuLink, an open-source tool for neuroscience research and education.Observed user pain-points and identified solutions while training early adopters to use PsyNeuLink. Worked with dozens of scientists and educators to translate their needs into software features. Projects motivated by interactions with users ranged from designing a concise, intuitive user-facing syntax, to modifying backend algorithms to accommodate models that were originally not possible to implement with PsyNeuLink.

Designed and built interactive visualizations of algorithms and concepts for an MITx (online) course in supply chains.(This was a side gig on the weekends)

Delivered recommendations on launch strategy, pricing, segmentation, and sales channels in advance of the company’s first product release. Gathered context through interviews and surveys, planning and executing demonstration events, participating in the MassChallenge startup accelerator, and running A/B tests with online ads.

Cambridge, Ma

Cambridge, Ma

Albany, Ny

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Mechanical Engineering

Activities and Societies: Women's Rowing (Co-Captain 2014-2015), Kappa Alpha Theta (Archivist-Historian 2014), Associate Advisor.

High School