21.3099° N, 157.8581° WBuild Log · v1.0Signal Online

I turn messy ideas into software that ships.

Founding engineer and builder-first CTO in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. I help founders and teams turn unclear ideas, AI workflows, and early products into software that actually ships.

Stylized portrait of Kent Salcedo in a futuristic mecha cockpit

Builder ID

Kent Salcedo

System Status: Shipping
  • Honolulu, HI
  • 0→1 Product Engineering
  • AI Automation
  • Full-Stack Dad
  • Available for select consulting / founding engineer work

Not a guru. Just a builder who likes turning ambiguous ideas into useful systems.

Status: Active

Build / Ship / Repeat

Currently building
luulive · /'gīdens/
Last ship
AI advisory workflows, internal tools
Availability
Available for select consulting / founding engineer work

What I do

01

0→1 Product Engineering

I help turn early ideas into working software without overbuilding the wrong thing.

02

AI Automation & Internal Tools

I build practical AI-assisted workflows that save time without turning your company into a science experiment.

03

Technical Leadership

I can set direction, write code, translate tradeoffs, and keep teams moving when requirements get weird.

Manifesto · The Messy Middle

The messy middle

Most of my work lives here, not in the pitch deck version of the product, but in the part where reality shows up.

01 · Unclear requirements

The idea is real, but nobody agrees on what v1 actually means yet.

02 · Evolving teams

Roles shift, priorities change, and the roadmap gets rewritten mid-sprint.

03 · Real customers

Feedback is valuable, contradictory, and arrives at inconvenient times.

04 · Real constraints

Budget, timeline, compliance, and the one API that never works the way the docs say.

That's not a problem to avoid. It's the job. I build calmly inside it.

Selected work

View all work →

LuuLive

Founding Product Engineer · Dec 2026 to Present

Problem

Divers and dive operators plan around ocean conditions every day, but most tools are built for surfers or generic weather, not the decisions divers actually make.

Build

Building LuuLive from zero: the Surfline-style forecasting platform for divers. As sole product engineer, I own the full stack: product definition, data pipelines, maps and UX, and every release. I also drive go-to-market: positioning, outreach, user acquisition, partnerships, and fundraising conversations as we grow the feature set and user base from the ground up.

Stack

  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • Data APIs
  • Mapping
  • Forecasting

Signal

0→1 · sole builder · product + GTM + raise

/'gīdens/

CTO & Founding Engineer · Aug 2024 to Present

Problem

Small business owners need practical advisory support, not another dashboard full of generic AI outputs.

Build

Built an AI-enabled advisory platform from the ground up as part of Blue Startups Cohort 16. Led product architecture, technical direction, and hands-on development.

Stack

  • Next.js
  • TypeScript
  • AI workflows
  • PostgreSQL
  • AWS

Signal

Blue Startups Cohort 16 · 0→1 platform · CTO + builder

SingleOps

Software Engineer · Early Team · Aug 2020 to Aug 2024

Problem

Field service teams need reliable software that works in production, and early-stage startups need builders who can ship on a small, scrappy team without waiting for perfect specs.

Build

Joined as an early employee during the seed round on a tight engineering team. Helped build the product and company from those early days, shipping across the stack, owning features operators used daily, and growing the platform as the startup scaled. Four years later, that trajectory contributed to a $74M raise.

Stack

  • React
  • Ruby on Rails
  • PostgreSQL
  • AWS

Signal

Seed-stage hire · 4 years · $74M raise

Sudokrew

Full Stack Engineer · Apr 2016 to Aug 2020

Problem

Companies needed experienced builders who could join fast-moving teams and ship across web and mobile.

Build

Created 14+ feature-rich web applications and 4 native apps. Augmented internal development teams for startups through Fortune 500 companies.

Stack

  • React
  • Node.js
  • React Native
  • PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB

Signal

14+ web apps · 4 native apps · startup to Fortune 500

manomano.io

Front-end Lead

Problem

Hawaiian language learners needed a reliable dictionary that normalized data from multiple inconsistent sources.

Build

Built a Hawaiian-to-English dictionary incorporating several source dictionaries. Led front-end development and handled complex parsing to normalize heterogeneous data.

Stack

  • React
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • AWS

Signal

Data normalization · cultural tech · front-end lead

grommet.io / HP Enterprise

React Component Engineer

Problem

Enterprise teams needed accessible, cross-browser React components that worked everywhere, including legacy browsers.

Build

Contributed to the Grommet React component library. Built 14 core components with focus on accessibility and cross-browser compatibility including IE/Edge.

Stack

  • React
  • Accessibility
  • Cross-browser
  • Component library

Signal

12 components · enterprise-grade · a11y focus

Why teams bring me in

  • 01

    You need someone who can both set direction and ship code.

  • 02

    Your product is early, messy, or changing fast.

  • 03

    Your AI idea needs to become a real workflow, not a demo.

  • 04

    Your team needs calm technical judgment.

  • 05

    You want pragmatic architecture that compounds.

By the numbers

10+

Years building software

18+

Production projects

14+

Feature-rich web apps

4

Native apps shipped

Multi-sector

Startup, agency, government, utility, nonprofit, and Fortune 500

Remote-first

Years of distributed team experience

Field notes

Technical build logs from the messy middle.

Read all notes →
Ready to build?

Have a messy product, AI workflow, or 0→1 build that needs to become real?

Requirements may change. That's why we build calmly.