Maitland Kelly

About Maitland Kelly

I\'m a lifelong hacker and sometimes engineer who enjoys tackling a multi-dimensional problem.I come from a non-traditional engineering background, having immersed myself in computing and building electronics since I was 8 years old. That is when my family bought a Commodore 64 computer for us to learn on, and the next year we bought an IBM PS/2 and ever since I\'ve been passionate about technology and the new advancements that come along year after year. I built a six-legged robot in high-school and was accepted to the UC system as an Electrical Engineer. Turns out I was much more interested in learning more about the humanities and graduated with a degree in History which has provided me numerous benefits from soft skills in the workplace to being excellent at trivia nights!My initial foray into the tech profession began at age 16 when I worked technical support for a rural dial-up internet provider whose systems ran on FreeBSD. The most common issue would be people trying to use the phone and the internet at the same time! In college at UCSC, I worked tech support for the on-campus housing handling both in-person computer repairs and customer service through an online portal. I soon after transferred to the Educational Outreach Program of UCSC and managed day-to-day IT operations for that office full-time during the summer, and part-time during studies.After bouncing around a few other jobs I moved to SF and happened to be in the right place at the right time to help Scoot Networks launch a completely new product for the very first time! The year was 2012 and we launched an electric Vespa-style scooter that you could activate with your cell phone! We would go on to expand to 3 different countries, offer multiple vehicle types, and operate for 7 years.I learned so much in that role, but one of my proudest accomplishments would be architecting and hand-building the prototype scooters that would go on to be our fleet of shareable vehicles. I personally selected the motor controller, designed the wiring harness, managed the production of wiring harnesses and the PCB bring up procedure, and worked closely with the backend engineers to ensure safe operation of the original 250 Scoots.Proficient in many skills and unfortunately master of none. I have professional experience (1 Year+) as a Motorcycle Mechanic, Motorcycle Shop Foreman, Supply Chain Manager, R&D Shop Manager, Firmware QA/Design Engineer, IoT/Vehicle Integration Engineer, Motor Controls (BLDC/AC) Engineer, Reverse Engineering, Software Engineering, and Embedded Security Engineering.

Experience

1. Hardware Operations Program Manager

   Instacart

   Feb 2026 — Present · Sacramento, CA, US

   Lead end-to-end hardware maintenance and repair programs for a large deployed fleet, scaling support operations as fleet size doubled while balancing in-house and third-party service models to maximize uptime and cost efficiencyDesigned and implemented a closed-loop maintenance system to intake, prioritize, and resolve hardware issues across field locations, reducing downtime and improving resolution qualityOwn field service operations, coordinating repair tickets, technician scheduling, parts availability, and on-site execution to meet aggressive SLAsPartner cross-functionally with Hardware Deployment, Product, Engineering, and Operations teams to identify dependencies and proactively unblock maintenance and retrofit initiativesBuilt and maintained maintenance and repair schedules aligned with deployment and retrofit timelines, ensuring on-time execution and clear ownershipAnalyze maintenance trends including failure modes, ground time, manpower utilization, and non-routine repairs to drive data-backed process improvementsDevelop standardized documentation, SOPs, and scalable playbooks covering diagnostics, repairs, escalation paths, and field operations to increase consistency and operational rigorLeverage ticketing systems and operational dashboards (e.g, Jira, ServiceNow/Freshdesk, Google Sheets) to track performance, surface insights, and communicate status to stakeholdersContinuously assess resource allocation and workflows across maintenance, deployment, and repair programs, recommending optimizations to improve speed, quality, and cost

Education

• University of California, Santa Cruz

  B.A

  2003 — 2007

Skills

• Community Outreach
• Social Media
• Leadership
• Research
• Social Networking
• Mechanics
• Management
• Customer Service
• Time Management
• Quality Assurance
• Social Media Marketing
• Marketing
• Facebook