Portland, Oregon
Hi, I'm Connor
Skudlarek.
I work on semiconductor manufacturing equipment at Lam Research, and I write software — increasingly for the same kinds of problems.
Measurement, instrumentation, and root-cause analysis on machines where being wrong is expensive. I taught myself full-stack development along the way, and led the frontend on a nonprofit's e-commerce build.
Looking for software work where manufacturing or hardware context is an asset — Portland or remote.
Or try something I built — it runs in your browser, no sign-in.
- Now
- Laboratory Service Engineer II, Lam Research
- Domain
- Semiconductor capital equipment
- Building with
- TypeScript, React, Next.js, PostgreSQL
- Also
- Volunteer frontend lead, 4Human Corporation
- Studied
- BS Mechanical Engineering, Oregon Tech
About
Two kinds of engineering
My day job is semiconductor capital equipment: the machines that manufacture chips, and the work of keeping them inside specification. It is a job about trusting numbers. A tool reports a measurement, and someone has to decide whether the measurement is real, whether the process drifted or the instrument did — and be right, because the wrong call gets expensive in a way that shows up on a wafer.
I studied mechanical engineering at Oregon Tech with a minor in applied mathematics, then started writing software and didn't stop. The Odin Project, then Frontend Masters, then projects with real users and real deadlines. In 2024 I joined 4Human Corporation as a volunteer and ended up leading the frontend on their largest build, working with ten-plus other volunteers across several time zones.
The two halves have converged more than I expected. Manufacturing runs on software that most software people never see: data collection, tolerance analysis, test and maintenance systems, anything that turns instrument output into a decision someone has to stand behind. I know that domain from the inside and I can build the tools, and I would rather use both than pick one.
I also spend a fair amount of time directing AI agents through research and build work, which mostly means writing precise specifications and then designing the check that decides whether the result survives. On one study I built a random-entry control that invalidated my own best model — it was measuring market beta rather than skill — and I closed the project. Knowing which result deserves to be distrusted is the part that stays with a person.
Current
Lam Research
Laboratory Service Engineer II
Portland, OR
Semiconductor capital equipment. Instrumentation, measurement, and root-cause work keeping production tools inside specification.
Volunteer
4Human Corporation
Volunteer Lead Frontend Engineer
A 501(c)(3) that builds software for other nonprofits. I led the frontend for the Murphy Charitable Foundation Uganda storefront and became the project's top contributor, coordinating a distributed volunteer team of ten-plus.
2016 – 2020
Oregon Institute of Technology
BS Mechanical Engineering, minor in Applied Mathematics
Hands-on engineering program. The applied math minor is where the statistics and numerical methods came from, and it is why the data side of software felt familiar later on.
Selected work
Things I've built
Each of these is here because it shows something different: leading a team, applying domain knowledge, and getting a model to run where the data never leaves the machine.
Leading a team
Murphy Storefront
Volunteer Lead Frontend Engineer, 4Human Corporation
E-commerce for a Ugandan charity, built by volunteers
The Murphy Charitable Foundation Uganda needed a storefront that could take donations and sell goods without a budget for software. I led the frontend build: component architecture, the design system, and the review process that let a rotating cast of volunteers ship without stepping on each other.
- Top contributor
- 91 commits
- Next most active
- 25 commits
- Volunteer team
- 10+ people
Domain knowledge, applied
Wafer Wizards
Solo build, 103 commits
Equipment maintenance tracking, designed from the lab floor
A tool goes down. Three people each know part of why, and none of it is written anywhere. Six months later the same failure costs the same afternoon. I built the tracker I wanted on the floor — organized around equipment and its history rather than around tickets — first on a MERN stack, then rewritten on Next.js and Postgres once the client-side data fetching stopped paying for itself.
- Commits
- 103
- Rewrite
- MERN → Next.js
- Data layer
- Raw SQL, no ORM
Negative Nancy Negator
Solo build
A browser extension that asks if you really want to post that
Recommendation algorithms learn from what you engage with, and arguing with strangers teaches them to show you more strangers to argue with. This extension notices when you're typing something heated and gives you a moment to reconsider. The tone classifier is a TensorFlow.js model running inside the extension, so nothing you type is ever sent anywhere — it works with the network off.
Smaller things
Tools and side quests
Small things I built because I wanted them to exist.
Risk battle calculator
I wanted to know what a Risk attack actually costs before committing to it, so I simulated the dice. Ties go to the defender, and that one rule moves the odds further than most players expect. Runs in your browser, no sign-in.
Try itCrunchyroll dub check
A small Chrome extension that turns the Dub badge green only when an English dub actually exists, instead of when one theoretically might. Three files, written in an evening, still installed.
Meatball Truck
A MERN replacement for a local food truck's Squarespace site. The client decided to stay put, which taught me to confirm someone will actually switch before building the thing they would switch to — a check I have run on every project since.
GitHubContact
Let's talk
I'm looking for software work where manufacturing or hardware context is an advantage — data collection, test and measurement, maintenance and process tooling, or anything where the software has to agree with a machine. Portland or remote.