ks Kaide Salo
Software Engineer
Independent mind, Engineering mindset. Open to interesting conversations

Good ideas.
Great Engineering.

Explore My Work

I'm Kaide, a software engineer turning
complex problems into intuitive digital experiences.

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01 / Thought, built, shipped.

Selected Works.

Collection of current and future projects
Built with intention Made for people Built with intention Made for people
Project 01 / 03

Personal project · Web

Spellbranch

A web app for building Magic: The Gathering decks with friends: search cards, fork a deck into branches, and compare every change.

Screenshot of Spellbranch’s deck page: the Gruul Stompy deck with tags, a branch link, a Scryfall card search for Embercleave with a card preview and Add card button, and the deck list grouped by card type with quantity controls

Screenshot · Deck page

Screenshot of the Spellbranch landing page: the headline ‘Build decks with friends. Fork ideas. Compare every change.’ beside a branch view panel listing card changes
Landing page
Screenshot of Spellbranch’s compare view: the Gruul Stompy source list beside a friend’s branch, with added, removed, quantity, and replaced card counts and a table of card changes
Branch compare
Screenshot of the Spellbranch dashboard with deck, branch, and friend counts and two deck cards, Boros Burn and Gruul Stompy
Dashboard
Two mobile screenshots of Spellbranch side by side: the dashboard and the branch compare view
Mobile

Role

Solo designer/developer

Stack

Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, Supabase; Scryfall API

Status

In progress

Overview

Spellbranch is a Magic: The Gathering deck builder I’ve been meaning to ship for a while. It started as a card-sorting page and grew into a place to build decks with friends: search cards, put a list together, and share it publicly or with friends only.

The core idea is branching. A friend can fork your deck and try their own cuts, then you compare the branch against the source side by side, with added, removed, and replaced cards called out, so game-night experiments never overwrite the original list. Card search and canonical card data come from the Scryfall API; accounts and decks live in Supabase.

I’m building it as a personal portfolio piece and a daily driver for my own decks. The repo is private for now while I finish the first public version.

Next

  • Polish empty, loading, and error states plus the mobile layout
  • Deploy a live demo
  • Make the repo public once the first version is ready

Screenshots are from a local development build using demo accounts. The repo is private for now, and a live demo is coming soon.
Project 02 / 03

Personal project · Microsoft Teams

Foxforge

A Microsoft Teams app I’m scoping and scaffolding, built to live where conversations already happen.

Concept mockup of Foxforge inside a generic Teams-style workspace: a Foxforge tab with a Yesterday, Today, and Blockers standup board beside a daily standup card posted by the Foxforge bot

Concept image

Role

Solo designer/developer

Stack

Microsoft Teams; Teams Toolkit, TypeScript, Node.js (planned)

Status

In progress

Overview

Foxforge is a Microsoft Teams app I’ve been putting off for longer than I’d like to admit. Rather than wait for the perfect plan, I’m starting small: write down what it should do, then get a bare app running inside Teams.

The first milestone is deliberately unglamorous: a written scope covering who it’s for, the one job it needs to do well, and what’s out of scope for v1, plus a minimal Teams scaffold that installs and runs end to end.

I’m building it as a portfolio piece and a way to learn how Teams apps are put together: the manifest, sideloading, and the platform’s conventions.

Next

  • Write a one-page scope: audience, core job, v1 boundaries
  • Scaffold a bare Teams app and sideload it in a dev tenant
  • Build the smallest version of the core flow from the scope
  • Publish the repo, then add screenshots here

The image above is a concept mockup. Screenshots, the repo, and a demo will be added as the build progresses.
Project 03 / 03

Fintech · Concept

Kitbook

A personal finance tracker concept that turns everyday spending into a clear, friendly picture of where your money goes, with a small origami fox keeping watch.

Concept mockup of the Kitbook dashboard with a total balance, spending-by-category donut chart, monthly budget bar, recent transactions, and an origami fox beside a savings goal; all figures are sample data

Concept image

Stack

React, TypeScript, D3.js, Node.js, PostgreSQL (concept stack)

Overview

Budgeting tools tend to either bury people in spreadsheets or nag them with alerts. Kitbook explores how one calm overview (a balance, a monthly budget, spending by category, and a savings goal) can make money feel manageable instead of stressful.

Approach

  • A one-screen overview that answers the everyday questions first: how much is left, where it went, and whether a goal is on track.
  • Charts built with D3 and paired with plain-text labels and totals, so no figure is conveyed by color alone.
  • A typed data model for accounts, transactions, and budgets in PostgreSQL, shaped for fast monthly roll-ups.

Focus

Data Visualization · Product Design · Accessibility

Kitbook is a concept project. The dashboard above is a design mockup, and every figure in it is sample data.