Derek Kinsman

I am a Cannes Innovation Lions and Ennies awards' losing maker of things residing in Guelph, ON, Canada. Usually those things require code, sometimes power tools and hand tools, most of the time it's for other people, and often it's done with others. I specialise in radical generalism (thanks for the term Sara Hendren), have a keen focus on ethics in technology (thanks to the Eyeo Festival community), and am more concerned with why we make the thing and the people we are making for over how we make it.

While I deeply enjoy the proof of life stage of a project, I'm just as comfortable writing production code, researching, fixing & logging bugs, writing documentation, making flowcharts, and working in spreadsheets. Nowadays my preference leans towards engineering management and team building. It turns out I very much enjoy interviewing engineers (I have 200+ hours under my belt at my previous role, alone). Solving the problems that enable engineering teams to do their best work very much scratches an itch I didn't know needed scratching. I started life on the design side and even though I'm not a good choice to lead modern software design, I am very comfortable talking & collaborating with designers and still enjoy doing branding, communication, and print design.

Most recently I worked as a tech director with the wonderful people at Coforma (formerly &Partners) managing a group of 6 way-too-talented engineers while also acting as a tech lead across several projects, and had existed as some sort of tech lead the entire time I was with the company. Prior to that I've worked with the mighty fine folks at Siberia, Teehan+Lax — on the Labs team, and other places that no longer exist. My main field of interest is Social Impact / Civic Tech, working on mission-driven projects that improve the real lives of real humans just trying to live their lives.

Much of the work I've been involved with during my career has been completed under NDA (several projects I've been a part of during my time with Coforma are available in their public case studies [see: 1, 2, 3, and 4]). Clients have come from a diverse set of industries including social impact & civic tech, music production, active apparel & high fashion, telecommunications, smart home, home automation, home security, automotive, advertising, wellness & fitness, healthcare, and medical cannabis. If you would like to learn more about my involvement in these projects reach out using your preferred method of contact below.

I can also be found building & designing websites for my friends (see: here, here, and here), designing analogue games of rôle—play, and publishing important works of proto science fiction.