[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":325},["ShallowReactive",2],{"page-home":3,"home-featured":42,"home-recent-quips":192,"component-identity":255,"component-nav":263,"component-footer":289,"i-mdi:menu":306,"i-mdi:close":311,"i-mdi:github":313,"i-mdi:linkedin":315,"i-nerdoza:kaweah-tech":317,"i-mdi:email-outline":321,"i-mdi:rss":323},{"id":4,"extension":5,"featuredWork":6,"meta":11,"positioning":12,"recentQuipsCount":13,"seo":14,"socials":18,"stem":35,"ui":36,"__hash__":41},"pageHome\u002Fpages\u002Fhome.yml","yml",[7,8,9,10],"licentio","ai-fertilizer-scheduling","directory-modernization","cotton-order-management",{},"I have been writing software for twenty years and leading the people who write it for half of those. By day I run engineering teams at Optum, supporting the referrals and care management features for UHG members. The rest of the time I run Kaweah Tech, the AI and software consultancy I started in 2023 to bring real engineering work to businesses in California's Central Valley. What I am good at is finding where something is not working and fixing it. Sometimes with software. Sometimes with AI. Often by stepping away from the keyboard and fixing the process instead.","3",{"title":15,"description":16,"ogTitle":17},"Zach Cardoza · Engineering Leader & Founder of Kaweah Tech","Engineer and engineering leader, twenty years in. Currently an engineering manager at Optum and the founder of Kaweah Tech. Based in Tulare, California.","Zach Cardoza",[19,23,27,31],{"label":20,"href":21,"icon":22},"GitHub","https:\u002F\u002Fgithub.com\u002Fnerdoza","mdi:github",{"label":24,"href":25,"icon":26},"LinkedIn","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.linkedin.com\u002Fin\u002Fzacharycardoza\u002F","mdi:linkedin",{"label":28,"href":29,"icon":30},"Kaweah Tech","https:\u002F\u002Fkaweah.tech","nerdoza:kaweah-tech",{"label":32,"href":33,"icon":34},"Email","mailto:zach@zachcardoza.com","mdi:email-outline","pages\u002Fhome",{"featuredWorkHeading":37,"allWorkLink":38,"recentQuipsHeading":39,"allQuipsLink":40},"Featured work","All work →","Recent quips","All quips →","2lGc4darADEUT8OYi7firkjyxeko8p_23RJgL5hWtxg",[43,86,119,161],{"id":44,"title":45,"artifacts":46,"body":49,"client":67,"description":55,"employer":68,"endDate":68,"extension":69,"headline":70,"meta":71,"navigation":72,"outcomes":68,"path":73,"resumeRole":74,"role":75,"scale":68,"seo":76,"slug":7,"startDate":77,"stem":78,"teamSize":68,"techStack":79,"tldr":84,"__hash__":85},"work\u002Fwork\u002Flicentio.md","Licentio",[47],{"label":45,"href":48},"https:\u002F\u002Flicent.io",{"type":50,"value":51,"toc":62},"minimark",[52,56,59],[53,54,55],"p",{},"The problem space is one of those quiet messes where the existing tools are spreadsheets, email reminders, and a stack of state-board PDFs printed at the supervisor's office. The licensure path for a clinical social worker varies state by state, and the supervisor often holds the only structured record of a supervisee's progress.",[53,57,58],{},"Licentio is built for the supervisee. The supervisor signs off on hours and supervisions; the supervisee owns the record. State board requirements are encoded; renewal deadlines are tracked; exam prep tracks alongside the practice hours.",[53,60,61],{},"This is the first Kaweah Tech in-house product designed for organic recurring revenue. The launch motion starts with a social-media operator joining the project in mid-2026. The longer-term goal is revenue sufficient to support a full-time exit from Optum into entrepreneurship, with Kaweah Tech consulting providing the bridge.",{"title":63,"searchDepth":64,"depth":65,"links":66},"",2,3,[],"Kaweah Tech in-house product",null,"md","A licensure-tracking application for clinical social workers and other therapy professionals.",{},true,"\u002Fwork\u002Flicentio","kaweah-tech","Founder",{"title":45,"description":55},"2025-01","work\u002Flicentio",[80,81,82,83],"TypeScript","Nuxt","PostgreSQL","AWS","Licentio is a licensure tracker for therapy professionals working toward state licensure. It tracks supervision hours, exam prep, application requirements, and renewal deadlines across the U.S. state boards. Launching in 2026. It is also the first Kaweah Tech product designed to earn recurring revenue on its own, rather than to serve a single client.","Y5yJtepii_8SS7qZE-ek9R3ioGmNJ4aum32M3Z-Y0oc",{"id":87,"title":88,"artifacts":68,"body":89,"client":105,"description":93,"employer":68,"endDate":68,"extension":69,"headline":106,"meta":107,"navigation":72,"outcomes":68,"path":108,"resumeRole":74,"role":75,"scale":68,"seo":109,"slug":8,"startDate":110,"stem":111,"teamSize":68,"techStack":112,"tldr":117,"__hash__":118},"work\u002Fwork\u002Fai-fertilizer-scheduling.md","Fertilytics",{"type":50,"value":90,"toc":103},[91,94,97,100],[53,92,93],{},"The framing of Fertilytics turned out to be the right shape for an LLM tool. The farmer has the data, the operational knowledge, and the final say. The LLM is a scheduling assistant that pulls the available inputs into a single recommendation.",[53,95,96],{},"Most of the interesting engineering was on the ingestion side. The data did not come from sensors or a clean API. It came in whatever format the farmer or the agronomist had on hand: spreadsheets, CSV files, PDFs, text files, and the occasional scanned image of a soil test or a fertilizer record. Each format needed its own parsing path and its own confidence weighting before any of it reached the LLM context window. Yield spreadsheets in particular were formatted four different ways depending on which year's template happened to be in use.",[53,98,99],{},"On top of the farmer's corpus, the pipeline pulls in a sizeable chunk of Farmer's Fertilizer's side of the relationship: their product catalog backend and their own recommendation schedules. The result is that the schedule the LLM produces is weighted toward what Farmer's Fertilizer actually stocks and sells, so the farmer ends up with something they can act on with their existing supplier rather than a list of generic fertilizer names.",[53,101,102],{},"Iteration happens inside the app. The farmer can drop additional inputs, concerns, or observations into the generation area, and the next pass picks them up alongside the existing corpus and produces an updated schedule. Conditions change through the season; the schedule re-runs as they do.",{"title":63,"searchDepth":64,"depth":65,"links":104},[],"Farmer's Fertilizer","A RAG-driven fertilizer scheduling tool built for Farmer's Fertilizer.",{},"\u002Fwork\u002Fai-fertilizer-scheduling",{"title":88,"description":93},"2025-04","work\u002Fai-fertilizer-scheduling",[80,81,113,114,115,116],"Python","RAG pipeline","LLM orchestration","PDF generation","Fertilytics is a fertilizer scheduling tool I built at Kaweah Tech for Farmer's Fertilizer. Farmers upload whatever data they have on hand (spreadsheets, CSV files, PDFs, text files, the occasional scanned image of a soil test). A RAG pipeline ingests the corpus alongside Farmer's Fertilizer's product catalog and their own recommendation schedules, and an LLM produces a fertilizer schedule optimized for the products they actually stock. The farmer can add notes, concerns, or observations directly inside the app and re-generate as conditions change through the season.","PhHsDpphltmdpjvoyTY1gM9HPZlayfXey-T_cnn-VlY",{"id":120,"title":121,"artifacts":68,"body":122,"client":68,"description":126,"employer":135,"endDate":136,"extension":69,"headline":137,"meta":138,"navigation":72,"outcomes":139,"path":143,"resumeRole":144,"role":145,"scale":146,"seo":150,"slug":9,"startDate":151,"stem":152,"teamSize":153,"techStack":154,"tldr":159,"__hash__":160},"work\u002Fwork\u002Fdirectory-modernization.md","Directory Modernization",{"type":50,"value":123,"toc":133},[124,127,130],[53,125,126],{},"The legacy pipeline was a weekly FTP-and-flat-file batch model that left provider data two weeks stale at the worst end. The new architecture is a continuous Kafka-driven event stream that processes updates as they arrive.",[53,128,129],{},"We ran the migration in two phases. Phase one was the ENI population (Individual and Family, Employer-Individual), roughly a third of the provider universe; it ran zero-downtime, parallel-execution-in-production, with output diffing to confirm equal-or-better data quality. Phase two covered the remaining 70% of the population in three months, accommodating per-population credential listing rules, Medicare and Medicaid specific data requirements, and the long tail of provider data normalization. We negotiated 13 additional offshore engineers to make the phase-two timeline achievable.",[53,131,132],{},"The hardest part was not the architecture; it was the data. Six months of negotiating the long tail of edge cases in provider records across multiple acquired companies. The result is the highest-quality provider directory in the network.",{"title":63,"searchDepth":64,"depth":65,"links":134},[],"Optum (UnitedHealth Group)","2024-06","Replaced a weekly batch provider data pipeline with a Kafka event stream serving 50M+ members.",{},[140,141,142],"Latency dropped from two weeks to four hours","Delivered one week ahead of schedule, zero downtime","$1.2M per month in processing savings","\u002Fwork\u002Fdirectory-modernization","optum","Engineering Manager",[147,148,149],"3.2M provider record updates per day","1.7M providers searchable","50M+ members served",{"title":121,"description":126},"2023-09","work\u002Fdirectory-modernization","7 to 20 engineers (core team plus offshore for phase 2)",[155,156,83,157,82,158],"Scala","Kafka","Elasticsearch","Kubernetes","At Optum I led the team that rebuilt the provider data pipeline. The old one was a weekly file-based batch. The new one is a continuous Kafka stream. It processes 3.2 million provider updates a day, cut update latency from two weeks down to four hours, and serves provider search to about 50 million members across 1.7 million providers. We landed it a week ahead of schedule, with zero downtime, and it saves the company roughly $1.2 million a month in processing costs.","nUnA1_3zen7rT1bo_8QQZJ4UMP91tTczdyVca26ZszA",{"id":162,"title":163,"artifacts":68,"body":164,"client":177,"description":168,"employer":68,"endDate":68,"extension":69,"headline":178,"meta":179,"navigation":72,"outcomes":180,"path":183,"resumeRole":74,"role":75,"scale":184,"seo":186,"slug":10,"startDate":187,"stem":188,"teamSize":68,"techStack":189,"tldr":190,"__hash__":191},"work\u002Fwork\u002Fcotton-order-management.md","R.M. King Work Order Management",{"type":50,"value":165,"toc":175},[166,169,172],[53,167,168],{},"The original problem was paper. Field reps wrote work orders on paper packets. Orders moved through the shop in paper folders. Status updates were tracked on a hand-maintained whiteboard. The first version of the platform replaced the packets with a mobile-first order entry app and the whiteboard with a status dashboard.",[53,170,171],{},"The interesting work since then has been the follow-on modules. The Exchange Module handles straight-across parts exchanges in lieu of rework, which previously required full manual reconciliation. The Reporting Module added the dashboards the operations team needed to actually run the shop. The Partial Rework Module supports small scoped reworks on individual pieces rather than full heads.",[53,173,174],{},"Ongoing relationship with R.M. King. The system now runs operations across both facilities, same workflow, same data model, with location-specific configuration for the differences between Fresno and Moultrie.",{"title":63,"searchDepth":64,"depth":65,"links":176},[],"R.M. King","Work Order Management for R.M. King, the platform that runs cotton picker head rework operations in Fresno and Moultrie.",{},[181,182],"Replaced a paper-based work order workflow","Expanded into Exchange, Reporting, and Partial Rework modules over time","\u002Fwork\u002Fcotton-order-management",[185],"Runs shop operations across two facilities (Fresno and Moultrie)",{"title":163,"description":168},"2022-08","work\u002Fcotton-order-management",[80,81,82,83],"The Work Order Management system I built at Kaweah Tech for R.M. King, a cotton picker head rework shop. Field reps enter work orders into phones and tablets. Orders track equipment intake, through-shop status, and customer delivery. The system has grown into Exchange, Reporting, and Partial Rework modules since the original build, and now runs shop operations across both R.M. King facilities in Fresno and Moultrie.","mhkatURAbezLzcuzsyLSYXD38FgD_QQk4z1KTu8FGVw",[193,214,234],{"id":194,"title":195,"body":196,"date":203,"description":204,"extension":69,"meta":205,"navigation":72,"path":206,"seo":207,"stem":208,"tags":209,"__hash__":213},"quips\u002Fquips\u002F2026-06-reading-between-the-lines.md","Reading between the lines of a job description",{"type":50,"value":197,"toc":201},[198],[53,199,200],{},"Interviewing for a new role, especially a director\u002FVP-level role, is an interesting experiment in reading between the lines. Once you ask enough questions, you start to uncover the true friction points in the business, the lore that led to the position being opened, and suddenly single lines from the job description make a lot more sense. \"Diverse team\" probably means the staff is made up of contractors in other countries. \"Communication is a priority\" likely means communication within the org is suffering at the moment. \"Moving fast\" is less about velocity and more about poor planning and the need for \"heroics.\"",{"title":63,"searchDepth":64,"depth":65,"links":202},[],"2026-06-10","Ask enough questions in an interview process and single lines from the job description start to make a lot more sense.",{},"\u002Fquips\u002F2026-06-reading-between-the-lines",{"title":195,"description":204},"quips\u002F2026-06-reading-between-the-lines",[210,211,212],"interviewing","leadership","career","n_XRoFSx2FhiLqbpy_B7gYlOKTXncTDJGyxMBUpswHM",{"id":215,"title":216,"body":217,"date":224,"description":225,"extension":69,"meta":226,"navigation":72,"path":227,"seo":228,"stem":229,"tags":230,"__hash__":233},"quips\u002Fquips\u002F2026-05-hire-for-the-roof-not-the-hammer.md","Hire for the roof, not the hammer",{"type":50,"value":218,"toc":222},[219],[53,220,221],{},"Tech hiring is far too concerned with the tools a professional is proficient with, and spends far too little time discovering how good they are at problem-solving. You would not hire a roofer based on the brand of hammer they use; you hire them based on how well they can lay a roof. Engineering roles should be filled with people who can think through and solve problems regardless of the domain and tools. We should stop relying on code challenges that really test how well you know a language and can implement \"solved\" solutions from memory, and should instead be asking engineers to solve complex and nuanced problems in abstract contexts.",{"title":63,"searchDepth":64,"depth":65,"links":223},[],"2026-05-21","Tech hiring obsesses over tool proficiency and spends too little time discovering how good someone is at solving problems.",{},"\u002Fquips\u002F2026-05-hire-for-the-roof-not-the-hammer",{"title":216,"description":225},"quips\u002F2026-05-hire-for-the-roof-not-the-hammer",[231,232,211],"hiring","engineering","tg8EjD1JQCjtTSO5FK6Cyw_cT38nhnIjjFdHfO9mgR0",{"id":235,"title":236,"body":237,"date":244,"description":245,"extension":69,"meta":246,"navigation":72,"path":247,"seo":248,"stem":249,"tags":250,"__hash__":254},"quips\u002Fquips\u002F2026-05-good-business-in-the-fringe.md","Good business in the fringe",{"type":50,"value":238,"toc":242},[239],[53,240,241],{},"The more time I spend with business founders, the more evident it becomes that \"good\" business is not always about operational efficiency, marketing, or even quality. There are just some businesses that operate in the fringe where supply and demand are out of balance, and they thrive despite what appear to be deliberate acts of self-sabotage.",{"title":63,"searchDepth":64,"depth":65,"links":243},[],"2026-05-14","Some businesses operate in the fringe where supply and demand are out of balance, and they thrive despite what looks like deliberate self-sabotage.",{},"\u002Fquips\u002F2026-05-good-business-in-the-fringe",{"title":236,"description":245},"quips\u002F2026-05-good-business-in-the-fringe",[251,252,253],"advisory","business","central-valley","nrpyKJuRC1W4u_Pdx_FlE3ztn7kHStWaKIMSSclAg00",{"id":256,"byline":257,"extension":5,"formalName":258,"location":259,"meta":260,"name":17,"stem":261,"__hash__":262},"componentIdentity\u002Fcomponents\u002Fidentity.yml","Eng Mgr @ Optum · Founder @ Kaweah Tech","Zachary Cardoza","Tulare, CA",{},"components\u002Fidentity","n5Jp9qm_RYhiJn_6K6LS2baFqi6xHTxTjz6kQRuNY_k",{"id":264,"aria":265,"extension":5,"links":270,"meta":286,"stem":287,"wordmark":17,"__hash__":288},"componentNav\u002Fcomponents\u002Fnav.yml",{"primary":266,"drawer":267,"openMenu":268,"closeMenu":269},"Primary","Primary navigation","Open menu","Close menu",[271,274,277,280,283],{"label":272,"to":273},"Work","\u002Fwork\u002F",{"label":275,"to":276},"Quips","\u002Fquips\u002F",{"label":278,"to":279},"Resume","\u002Fresume\u002F",{"label":281,"to":282},"About","\u002Fabout\u002F",{"label":284,"to":285},"Contact","\u002Fcontact\u002F",{},"components\u002Fnav","IItap6SpXhYAvCmXy9rhcYY_JN8djcGts4Wj39AiKgE",{"id":290,"copyrightName":17,"extension":5,"links":291,"meta":303,"stem":304,"__hash__":305},"componentFooter\u002Fcomponents\u002Ffooter.yml",[292,295,296,298,299],{"label":20,"href":21,"icon":22,"target":293,"rel":294},"_blank","me 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