Welcoming Kirk van Gorkom as Our New Head of Engineering!

Kirk is passionate about building products that directly improve lives and is thrilled to continue that work for iNaturalist. Driven by that passion, Kirk joined a startup that delivered personalized fitness experiences through machine learning on community data. Following the company’s acquisition by Fitbit, he spent several years in management roles leading teams building scalable coaching platforms to help people better understand their health and reach their fitness potential. After Fitbit was acquired by Google, Kirk played a key leadership role in the transition to help their software reach millions more people. His experiences have shaped him into a versatile engineering leader with deep technical expertise across various domains.

His ability to lead teams in sustainably building robust, high-performance systems, while keeping user experience at the forefront, aligns perfectly with iNaturalist’s needs.

As the Head of Engineering, Kirk will oversee all engineering efforts, ensuring that our technical strategies align with our mission to connect people to nature and advance science and conservation.