Kansas City, USA · she/her

Katia
Wheeler

I'm an Engineering Manager who never stopped being an engineer.

Katia Wheeler

Nice to meet you!

Building teams where engineers thrive.

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I'm currently leading AI Developer Experience at Vanta, a team focused on making every engineer faster with AI. The team owns the tooling, agents, and workflows that engineers at Vanta reach for every day, plus the team's goals and technical direction. I specialize in frontend but have shipped full-stack across plenty of languages, so I'm comfortable jumping into pretty much anything.

Most of what I care about comes down to engineering craft. That means tests you can trust, CI that stays green, reviews that teach, and codebases that are easy for the next person (or agent) to navigate. Recently, that's meant building an AI workflow to crush flaky tests.

I'm a big believer in mentoring developers and in leaving teams faster than I found them. I've taught JavaScript and React at a community college and given a few talks (including one on Atomic Design).

Outside of work, I'm either spending time with my wife and kids, making music, or drinking coffee.

Writing

Notes on leading engineering teams, building with AI, and the hands-on work that keeps me close to the code.

6 more posts on the blog

Engineering leadership, building with AI, frontend craft, and the occasional rant, going back to 2018.

Experience

Where I've been and what I've learned.

VantanowEngineering Manager, AI DXSep 2026 - Present

Engineering Manager for the AI Developer Experience team, responsible for the tooling, agents, and workflows that help Vanta engineers build with AI. Setting the team's goals, priorities, and technical direction while staying close enough to the code to keep the feedback loop tight.

  • People Management
  • Agentic Development
  • AI Developer Experience
  • Technical Strategy
Vanta ↗
VantaSenior Engineer, Design Systems · Tech LeadApr 2026 - Sep 2026

Built and maintained the design system that powers Vanta's compliance automation platform, along with the agentic experiences layered on top of it. Partnered with designers and product engineers to ship accessible, well-crafted components and AI-driven flows that help teams move faster and stay consistent across the product.

Served as Tech Lead of the Design Systems team, setting technical direction, shaping the roadmap, and mentoring engineers as we scaled the system across Vanta's product surface.

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Design Systems
  • Storybook
  • Claude Code
Vanta ↗
ShopifySenior Developer2021 - 2026

Led multiple projects involving key features for a merchant's presence on the Shop app that included technical architecture, design, and development utilizing React Native. Created both the frontend and backend of a new admin tool for merchants to customize their storefronts' appearance in the Shop app utilizing React and Ruby on Rails. Built and maintained critical components for Shop Pay Installments across multiple repos and technologies. Utilized AI tools to improve day to day workflows as well as reduce developer toil when it comes to flaky tests in the CI.

Served as the Development Manager with 8 direct reports ranging from junior to Staff engineers. Duties included setting the team's goals, priorities, and technical direction. Actively mentored mid and junior level developers as well as multiple interns who then transitioned to full-time employees.

  • React
  • React Native
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • Ruby on Rails
  • MySQL
  • GraphQL
  • Cursor
  • Claude Code
Shopify ↗
LimeadeSenior Developer · Team Lead2019 - 2021

Team Lead for the web portion of an Employee Experience platform. Implemented a micro-frontend architecture utilizing React. Responsible for the creation and maintenance of an internal shared React component library and other utility libraries. Coordinated and assisted contractors helping with our efforts to make our platform completely accessible following WCAG standards.

Served as a member of the Kaleidoscope Council, an internal organization whose goal is to positively impact the culture of Limeade through DEI initiatives. Actively mentored mid and junior level developers.

  • React
  • TypeScript
  • .NET Core
  • AWS
  • Storybook
Limeade ↗
Balance InnovationsSoftware Engineer2018 - 2019

Developed and maintained modular user interfaces and component libraries for a Software as a Service product utilizing React, Redux, and GraphQL (Apollo Server and Client). All code was expected to be highly performant, well-tested, and well-crafted. Updated and enhanced APIs within a micro-services architecture utilizing .NET Core and AWS.

  • React
  • Redux
  • GraphQL
  • .NET Core
  • AWS
  • Storybook
Balance Innovations ↗
iModulesSoftware Engineer2017 - 2018

Utilized Test-Driven Development and Pair Programming paradigms to create both the front-end and back-end of an email management system built in React with TypeScript, Redux, and .NET Core. Maintained native iOS (Swift) and Android (Kotlin) mobile applications for an event management application.

  • React
  • Redux
  • TypeScript
  • .NET Core
  • SQL
  • Swift
  • Kotlin
iModules ↗
Valley Hope AssociationSoftware Engineer I2016 - 2017

Created a client-facing patient portal as well as internal applications. Crafted both the back-end MVC architecture using .NET Core as well as the front-end Angular 2 implementation utilizing Material Design principles.

  • Angular 2
  • .NET Core
  • SQL
  • JavaScript
  • HTML & CSS
Valley Hope Association ↗
BIGSHOT InboundFull-Stack Developer2015 - 2016

Created custom WordPress templates and plugins for client websites from high resolution mockups. Met with clients to determine all requirements, both design and functional, and implemented an end-to-end solution to fit their needs.

  • WordPress
  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • SASS
  • JavaScript
  • HTML & CSS
BIGSHOT Inbound ↗

Teaching & speaking

Sharing what I know, in classrooms and on stage.

Connectaha · 2019 · Omaha, NE

Thinking About React, Atomically

Atomic Design is the concept of breaking down user interfaces into smaller, simpler elements. There are five different levels in atomic design: atoms, molecules, organism, templates, and pages. These levels are combined to make user interfaces.

React, at its core, follows Atomic Design inherently by encouraging developers to keep components as simple and as broken down as possible. From this simplicity, we can create more complex components and containers of components to create the user interfaces for our applications. Following these patterns gives us, as developers, an easy to manage (and test) ecosystem within our React applications.

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2019 - 2021

Adjunct Professor of Web Development

Johnson County Community College

Taught introductory and intermediate courses to over 75 students in web development using JavaScript and React. Delivered instruction in both in-person and remote formats. Courses were project-based and real-world applicable. Post-employment, continued to mentor past students as they began their careers.

  • JavaScript I
  • React I
  • React II