Karen Lai
Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft
Seattle, Washington, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolKaren Lai is a Senior Software Engineer based in Seattle with nine years of experience bridging product design and front-end engineering, currently driving AI Platforms & Tools at Microsoft. She began as a product and UX designer and leverages that background to craft polished, accessible UI controls and developer-facing demos for WinUI and the Windows App SDK. Her open-source contributions include refining ProgressBar/ProgressRing animations and accessibility features in microsoft-ui-xaml and evolving the WinUI Gallery's XAML pages and minimal modes—work visible to millions of Windows developers. Comfortable in XAML, C#, and C++, she combines user research instincts with implementation rigor to iterate on interaction details that improve usability and testing. Collected design-to-code experience and ownership of flagship demo tooling give her a rare ability to translate user needs into reusable UI primitives.
9 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor’s Degree, Industrial and Product Design, GPA 3.7, Bachelor’s Degree, Industrial and Product Design, GPA 3.7 at Carleton University
English, French, Chinese, Japanese
Github Skills (11)
winui10
csharp10
xaml10
dotnet-core10
fluent-design10
cprogramming-language9
c-language9
cpp9
fluentd8
windows8
uwp8
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml
Nov 2019 - Jul 2022
WinUI: a modern UI framework with a rich set of controls and styles to build dynamic and high-performing Windows applications.
Role in this project:
Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:237 reviews, 189 commits, 159 PRs in 2 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Karen primarily focused on implementing and refining the `ProgressBar` and `ProgressRing` UI controls within the WinUI framework. Their work involved adding new features like indeterminate animations and error states. They made changes to the XAML, C++, and C# code related to these controls, including updating the styling, animations, and accessibility features. Additionally, they contributed to the interaction tests for the controls.
windows-10wpfwindows-app-sdkuwpuwp-apps
microsoft/WinUI-Gallery
Jul 2021 - Jun 2022
This app demonstrates the controls available in WinUI and the Fluent Design System.
Role in this project:Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:9 releases, 161 reviews, 35 commits in 10 months
Contributions summary:Karen's contributions primarily revolve around the user interface of the WinUI gallery application. They made adjustments to existing XAML-based control pages, including the ItemsRepeaterPage and BreadcrumbBarPage, implementing data binding, and addressing comments. Their changes often involved visual alignment fixes and the addition of new features such as minimal mode. The user also worked on refining UI elements and behavior based on user feedback.
xamluwpwindowsuwp-appsxaml-style
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