Kyle Russell

Product engineer + founder

hi@kylebrussell.dev · kylebrussell.dev · GitHub · LinkedIn · X

Summary

I build and ship internal tools, automations, and product prototypes—especially where AI changes the economics of internal software. I’m strongest in ambiguous, high-leverage environments with tight iteration loops.

Experience

Valon — AI Deployment Lead

Aug 2025–Present

  • Own discovery → delivery: scope, validate, build, deploy, iterate.
  • Ship automations that eliminate repetitive work across Deployment, Operations, Legal, HR, and Recruiting.
  • Build internal tools: Slack bots, small web apps, and GitHub Actions.
  • Create MCP servers and integrations (e.g., Rippling MCP; Ashby skills) and connect tools like Gong, Linear, and Notion.
  • Write enablement docs and do 1:1 upskilling so teams can self-serve with AI tools effectively.

Transform.dev — Founder

2022–2023

  • Built natural-language app prototyping: prompt → preview → deploy in minutes.
  • Focused on fast iteration loops for non-technical builders.

Playbyte — Founder

2019–2022

  • Raised $4M (FirstMark, Ludlow Ventures, and angels).
  • Scaled to TestFlight’s beta cap and hosted 100k+ games created by tens of thousands of users.

Skydio — Developer Platforms

2018–2019

  • Built a developer platform for custom autonomous flight skills and navigation paths.
  • Shipped a browser-based 3D simulator to speed iteration and testing.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) — Senior Deal Partner

2015–2017

  • Invested and worked with founders building emerging computing platforms.
  • Partnered on diligence, product strategy, and go-to-market with early-stage teams.

Projects

  • CAP RLVR Reinforcement Learning from Verifiable Reasoning for legal tasks (Caselaw Access Project).
  • ARoniOS ARKit starter kit for non-iOS developers.
  • StoryPanels LLM-powered iOS comic creation app.
  • fed-policy-cli CLI for exploring Federal Reserve policy scenarios.
  • nuno-player iPod-inspired scroll wheel music player in C.
  • City Park Life Top-down 2D life sim set in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Writing / Press

Education

UC Berkeley (2011–2014)

Skills

TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, Swift, C/C++

GitHub Actions, Vercel, Slack APIs

LLM integrations, agent workflows, MCP servers