About Me

Translation is the hard part of complex work. Making something technically intricate legible to someone who doesn't share your context is a different skill than understanding it yourself.

I came up through math and physics, spent time studying space physics at Los Alamos and UCLA, then left academia for Samsung. I moved from tracking anomalous events in Cassini spacecraft data to tracking anomalous events in Galaxy phone data. From the galaxy out there to the galaxy in your pocket. The physics changed. The pattern recognition didn't.

What followed was developer advocacy, then CircleCI, where I do the same work at scale: take something technically precise and make it land without making it wrong.

Ron Powell's workspace with a monitor, speakers, and desk setup.

Husband and Father

I live on a cul de sac with my wife and daughter. I take my daughter to school every morning on the back of my ebike. She is four. We have already given her a life we could not have imagined for ourselves growing up.

Little Bear sitting alert and staring into the camera.

Cat Dad

Little Bear is a twelve-year-old cat. I love him. He has been mean since the day a friend handed him to me in Los Angeles twelve years ago. He was just a kitten then. Anyone else would have given up on him. He just needs space and predictability. I am always the unpredictable one in the relationship.

Adventurer

I train for hard things. Backpacking trips, trail runs, anything that takes months of preparation to be ready for. The plan changes sometimes. I find something harder.

Ron Powell outdoors on a trail with hills behind him.