Patrick Kaehuaea

About Patrick Kaehuaea

I help teams improve their systems and ways of working — a little at a time — by focusing on automation, visibility, and staying grounded in what matters. My approach to leadership is servant‑first: staying humble, staying transparent, and creating space for people to bring their best selves to work.As a leader at Starbucks, I grew a small team responsible for production infrastructure in a large-scale retail environment. We tackled datacenter cutovers, system stabilization, and automation — always with an eye toward resiliency, clear documentation, and small, sustainable improvements that made the system better day by day.My military background shaped how I show up — with calm, focus, and a “leaders eat last” mindset. I’m energized by work that brings systems and teams closer to reliable delivery and empowering experiences. Outside of work, I’m usually in the kitchen or tinkering with home automation. If you\'re working on real problems and like thoughtful systems, I’d love to connect.

Experience

1. Principal Engineer

   Starbucks

   Aug 2022 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

   As a Principal Engineer, I’ve focused on early-stage R&D and prototyping to help improve reliability, delivery, and developer experience across Starbucks Technology. Most of my work has involved exploring tools, connecting systems, and partnering with teams to find better ways of working.I collaborated with a cohort of directors and a VP on a cross-functional initiative around the future of engineering. While that group eventually wound down, the work kicked off some important conversations and led to a few hands-on projects, including:* Building out DORA metrics using Faros AI and demoing it during our internal tech expo* Prototyping ServiceNow DevOps Change Velocity to help teams understand risk around deployments* Exploring ML-based approaches to predict incidents from change request patterns* Working on developer experience with Cortex and Backstage — where I’ve seen the most traction so farThis role has been less about shipping finished tools and more about creating clarity, testing ideas, and helping other teams see what’s possible.

Education

• Seattle University

  Bachelor of Arts, Chemistry

  1999 — 2004

Skills

• Perl
• Chef
• Red Hat Linux
• Tomcat
• Sql
• Linux
• Go Lang
• Web Applications
• Information Technology
• Java
• Software Documentation
• Troubleshooting
• Computer Security
• System Administration
• Security
• Infrastructure
• Network Administration
• Software Development