Cassidy James Blaede
Objective
To design, implement, and continuously improve excellent experiences, especially using and related to open source software.
Experience
Over a decade of open source collaboration. A decade of user experience architecture. A decade managing a successful open source company. And way too long doing front-end web development.
Endless OS Foundation 2022–
Partner Success Engineer
I work as a bridge between the foundation’s dozens of impact partners—the organizations on the ground deploying the open source, Linux-based Endless OS and other technologies around the world—and the Endless engineering team. My job is to ensure our mutual success by improving processes and documentation and supporting both our partners and engineers however I can.
Read More
elementary, Inc. 2011–2022
Co-founder, Chief Experience Officer (CXO)
I co-founded the company in 2011 and have helped it grow to sustain multiple employees while releasing 6 major OS releases, a pay-what-you-can app store, and multiple technology stack shifts like Python to Vala, GTK2 to GTK3, and Debian to Flatpak.
Personally, I was responsible for the overall experience and messaging of the company and products, user experience architecture, and being a liason between parties including end users, OEMs, developers, and other open source projects.
Responsibilities:
Achievements:
Other Responsibilities
- Front-end web development of elementary.io and related web properties
- Front-end desktop development and code review in Vala and GTK
- Monthly update and Q&A livestreams
- User documentation
- Documenting, evolving, and maintaining detailed Human Interface Guidelines
System76 2014–2018
UX Architect, Front-end Web Developer
Responsibilities:
- UX research, modeling, design, and testing
- Front-end web development of System76.com (2014–2017)
- Working directly with marketing team to turn concepts & designs into code
- Communicating with and translating between designers, engineers, stakeholders, and customers
- Constant collaborative design and development using git and GitHub
Achievements:
- Researched, initiated, and documented an effort to offer HiDPI displays and improve the HiDPI experience on System76 products
- Coordinated efforts working with upstream open source projects
- Attended and documented GNOME UX Hackfest 2017, helping to design future improvements to GNOME Shell and GDM
- Designed several critical customer-facing interfaces (Product Configurator, OS Installer, USB Flasher, GPU Switching) and helped bring them to life in code
- Accepted as a member of the GNOME Foundation for work on GNOME and downstream projects
- Attended and documented GUADEC 2018, helping to represent System76 and Pop!_OS interests while building closer relationships with upstreams
Other Responsibilities
- Photo editing & video compositing
- Front-end desktop development in Vala and GTK
Visual Logic Group 2012–2013
User Experience Intern
- UX research & user testing
- Designing time-tracking software with a team
- Icon design
- Front-end web development
University of Northern Iowa 2011–2012
Network Engineer Assistant (ITS Network Services)
LCS 2010–2011
Technical Support Analyst
Webspec Design, LLC. 2007–2010
Web Developer
Education
University of Northern Iowa 2012–2014
Interactive Digital Studies
DMACC 2010–2012
Liberal Arts