Kenneth Duck - Prototype Systems Architect (Principal Engineer / Solutions Architect) & Senior Consultant

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Employment History
Independent Software Consultant / Founder
Oct 2013 - Present
REMOTE Liverpool, Nova Scotia
Software Consultant, Founder, and Acquired Product Leader. Leveraged over a decade of deep technical expertise and entrepreneurial vision to design, build, and scale SaaS platforms.
Key Engagements and Achievements
Founder, Vör Security
Founded, scaled, and exited Vör Security/OSS Index (an OSS vulnerability tracking SaaS platform); led its successful acquisition and achieved massive industry adoption by handling hundreds of millions of monthly requests.
Platform Modernization
Spearheaded full-stack development and major front-end framework migration for a next-gen web-based battery testing and analysis platform.
Real-Time Microservices
Contributed to development and deployment of a cutting-edge microservice-based real-time system for distributed energy storage orchestration as part of a multidisciplinary team.
Verification Platform Design
Architected and delivered deep-tech solutions for formal verification in complex systems, including designing a full-stack platform for visualizing and interpreting logical flaws in early-stage engineering designs.
AI Product Development
Pioneered and built event-driven microservices that integrate LLMs and neural networks to enable the development of next-generation AI-powered products.
Consulting Focus
Platform Strategy
Software architecture, scalable microservices, and event-driven design.
AI Integration
Architecting and integrating machine learning models into production systems.
Product Acceleration
Exploratory prototyping and technical leadership for early-stage development.
Engineering Excellence
DevOps, developer tooling, and LLM-aided development workflows.
References
Sonatype Inc.
Staff Engineer & Post-Acquisition Product Leader
Jun 2017 - December 2025
REMOTE Fulton, Maryland
Eight year tenure progressing across Product Management and Senior Engineering, culminating in Staff Engineer/Tech Lead, consistently leading the design, architecture, and development of core security and developer infrastructure platforms.
Key Achievements & Contributions
Tech Leadership
Drove architecture and development for several initiatives, balancing hands-on coding (Java, Spring Boot) with technical direction, mentoring, and system design.
Microservices Re-Architecture
Co-spearheaded a re-architecture of Nexus Lifecycle, transitioning the platform to a microservice-based system for modern CI/CD environments.
Maven Central Contributor
Core contributor to Maven Central (the world's largest Java repository), developing Java/Rust microservices, complex data stores, and AWS infrastructure.
Prototype & Innovation
Led high-impact teams prototyping SAST features (Static Analysis), and driving the development of new features for Sonatype Developer and Sonatype Lift.
Acquisition & Scaling
Maintained technical oversight of OSS Index post-acquisition, aligning data aggregation pipelines with commercial ingestion processes to significantly accelerate vulnerability discovery.
Vulnerability Detection
Oversaw the automated vulnerability detection platform as Product Manager and Technical Lead, ensuring evolution of this core intelligence source for all Sonatype products.
Product/Business Bridge
Bridged security research, engineering, and business units, translating complex technical requirements into actionable product features.
This diverse tenure enabled me to consistently deliver value across the entire product lifecycle; from entrepreneurial vision and early-stage development to senior-level architectural strategy and technical execution in a large, acquired product ecosystem.
References
Novonix Inc
Platform Modernization & Full-Stack Consultant
Nov 2022 - Oct 2024
REMOTE Halifax, Nova Scotia
As a consultant to this leading battery technology company, I joined a high-impact "skunkworks" team dedicated to building their next-generation battery testing and analysis SaaS platform. My mandate was full-stack feature delivery, architectural guidance, and enhancing long-term platform scalability.
Key Contributions
Front-End Migration
Directed and executed a zero-downtime framework migration from Angular to React, measurably improving application performance and developer experience (DX).
Platform Scalability
Spearheaded major refactoring initiatives to significantly enhance long-term platform scalability, code maintainability, and testing velocity across the stack.
Full-Stack Delivery
Delivered critical full-stack features for the custom battery analysis platform, utilizing Python (Backend) and modern JavaScript frameworks.
Vör Security
CEO & Founder
Oct 2013 - Jun 2017
Ottawa
Founded and led Vör Security, an independent SaaS company on open-source security tooling. Developed the flagship product, OSS Index, a publicly accessible vulnerability database and scanning platform to improve security visibility for developers. Vör Security and OSS Index were acquired by Sonatype in June 2017, marking a successful exit.
Key Achievements
Successful Acquisition
Successfully negotiated and executed the acquisition of Vör Security and OSS Index by Sonatype, a leader in software supply chain security.
Platform Scale & Architecture
Designed, developed, and scaled the OSS Index platform, a high-scale SaaS vulnerability database supporting 15+ package ecosystems and tracking millions of CVEs.
Massive Industry Adoption
Achieved massive industry adoption, powering hundreds of millions of monthly requests and checking tens of billions of software components per month for vulnerabilities.
Executive Leadership
Spearheaded the entire venture, defining the product vision, designing the platform architecture, managing all development, and securing acquisition/client financing.
Ecosystem Integration
Led integration of automated security scanning tools across 15+ ecosystems (npm, Maven, PyPI, Cargo, etc.), accelerating dev pipeline efficiency.
References
Dalhousie University/Quantum Research Analytics
Senior Software Developer
June 2013 - July 2017
REMOTE Halifax, Nova Scotia
Part of the core development team for a deep-tech company focused on formal verification to reduce errors in complex aviation, automotive, and utility systems. Contributions focused on building early-stage prototypes and the core verification platform.
Key Contributions:
Verification Platform
Designed and built QVTrace, a full-stack application for managing and visualizing complex engineering system models.
Formal Verification
Integrated with services which used formal verification solvers (Z3, CVC4) to enable automated detection of logical flaws in early-stage system designs.
Data Visualization
Developed intuitive user interfaces for navigating and interpreting complex verification results across large datasets.
References
  • QvTrace at the Wayback Machine (2002)