Kurt Catti-schmidt
Principal Software Developer at Microsoft
Seattle, Washington, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolKurt Catti-schmidt is a Principal Software Developer based in Seattle with eight years of focused experience building and hardening web platform features, now leading layout work on Microsoft Edge. He brings deep expertise in CSS Grid and text rendering—contributing tests and engine improvements to high-profile open-source projects like web-platform-tests and Chromium—to ensure spec-compliant, high-performance behavior across browsers. Kurt’s background spans hands-on test automation, refactoring core layout iterators to modern memory models, and accessibility work (ARIA and UIA), giving him both product-facing impact and low-level systems fluency. Notably, his text-rendering improvements were recognized in industry coverage and informed a Chromium developer blog, reflecting measurable cross-vendor influence. He pairs a CS and interdisciplinary computing education from UC San Diego with pragmatic experience in tooling, fuzzing, and real-world site prioritization to drive high-impact fixes.
8 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
University of California San Diego
Stackoverflow
66reputation
3kreached
2answers
0questions
Github Skills (21)
c-language10
css10
css-grid10
memory-management10
chromium10
graphic10
skia10
text-rendering10
cprogramming-language10
test-automation10
testing9
web-performance9
html8
front-end-development8
javascript7
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
chromium/chromium
Oct 2019 - Jan 2023
The official GitHub mirror of the Chromium source
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:10 commits in 3 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Kurt primarily worked on the Chromium project, specifically within the Grid layout engine. Their contributions focused on addressing syntax errors in CSS Grid tests, refactoring and optimizing grid-related code. They also modernized grid iterators and data structures to use span and Oilpan-managed memory, indicating a focus on performance and maintainability.
chromiumgithub-mirrorchrome
web-platform-tests/wpt
May 2021 - Dec 2022
Test suites for Web platform specs — including WHATWG, W3C, and others
Role in this project:Test Automation Engineer & Front-end Developer (specializing in CSS)
Test Automation Engineer & Front-end Developer (specializing in CSS)Contributions:10 commits, 1 PR, 5 comments in 1 year 7 months
Contributions summary:Kurt's contributions primarily revolve around testing and enhancing the CSS Grid implementation within the repository. They focused on updating and correcting existing test cases, particularly those related to subgrids, auto-repeat, and grid alignment. The user added new tests for features like subgrid gap support and handling of writing directions, ensuring the repository's test suite accurately reflects the CSS Grid specifications. Additionally, the user modified test expectations and addressed issues related to computed style values, contributing to a more reliable and compliant testing environment.
microsoft-edgetest-runnerspecssafarifirefox
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