Case Study
Making building telemetry useful to operators
Carrier HVAC
Role
AWS Solutions Architect, Abound Platform (Contract) — Architecture and Hands-on Development
Period
June 2021 – November 2023
Duration
29 months
Reporting Line
Dual reporting — VP (Technology) and VP (Business)
Industry
Connected HVAC / Smart Buildings
The Problem
Carrier HVAC was investing in a global IoT SaaS platform as a strategic connected-buildings play — sensors and controllers across large facilities monitoring air temperature and air quality at scale.
Carrier was building Abound, a connected-building platform that gathered telemetry from building sensors and controllers and made it available to operators.
The platform needed coordinated architecture and implementation across TypeScript frontend and backend code, APIs, event-driven processing, data stores, identity, and repeatable AWS infrastructure.
Why It Mattered
Ken worked across architecture and hands-on development, contributing to the frontend, backend, event flows, data design, and AWS infrastructure. Interviewing and team guidance supported that implementation work.
What Ken Did
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Built the application and API layer in TypeScript. Developed TypeScript across the frontend, backend services, application features, APIs, and service integrations.
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Architected the IoT data plane. Implemented event-driven telemetry ingestion with AWS IoT Core, Kinesis Data Streams, Lambda, and EventBridge, including device authentication, validation, retention, and error handling.
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Designed polyglot persistence for each workload. Integrated DynamoDB, Timestream, Neptune, and MongoDB to match application and data-access needs.
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Made delivery repeatable with TypeScript infrastructure as code. Built repeatable AWS infrastructure using AWS CDK and TypeScript.
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Built B2B identity and security. Implemented Okta SSO, JWT validation, API security, least-privilege IAM, and encryption controls.
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Owned cost engineering and observability. Worked on S3 lifecycle policies, DynamoDB capacity, Lambda memory tuning, CloudWatch retention, and operational dashboards for cost and service visibility.
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Laid the foundation for future ML. Built Kinesis, Lambda, and S3 ingestion paths that established a data foundation for later analytics work.
What Changed
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Application, API, event-processing, and data components were delivered as parts of the connected-building platform.
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Repeatable CDK infrastructure and shared TypeScript patterns supported continued product development.
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Security, identity, and operational visibility were addressed alongside implementation.
What Continued Afterward
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TypeScript frontend and backend application components and APIs
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AWS CDK infrastructure and event-driven telemetry processing
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Data integrations spanning DynamoDB, Timestream, Neptune, and MongoDB
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Identity, security, and operational patterns for continued platform work
Tools Behind the Work
Need connected systems and data to work together?
Bring the business problem or contract requirement. We can discuss what needs to change, what the work requires, and whether my experience fits.