Ben Thomas
Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft
Seattle, Washington, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolBen Thomas is a Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft in Seattle with nine years of professional software experience and a background that spans founding a product-focused consultancy to leading Azure Sphere services. He blends hands-on full-stack engineering—evidenced by contributions to Microsoft's high-profile semantic-kernel repo and fixes in Copilot Chat samples—with people leadership and delivery of secure, production-grade systems. His career threads hardware-adjacent research experience (ADMX cryogenic electronics) and a physics degree into pragmatic systems thinking for embedded and cloud services. Known for cleaning up technical debt and improving developer ergonomics, he pairs rigorous validation and API-level fixes with thoughtful UX improvements.
9 years of coding experience
14 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelors of Science, Physics, Bachelors of Science, Physics at University of WashingtonAA, Automotive and Diesel Technology, AA, Automotive and Diesel Technology at Universal Technical Institute of Arizona IncAA, Science, AA, Science at North Seattle Community College
Github Skills (14)
net10
asp-net10
dotnet10
openai10
sdk10
csharp10
ai10
dotnet-core10
full-stack9
fullstack-development9
nuget9
api8
react8
apidoc8
Programming languages (4)
Github contributions (5)
microsoft/semantic-kernel
Jun 2023 - Jan 2026
Integrate cutting-edge LLM technology quickly and easily into your apps
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:752 reviews, 167 PRs, 121 pushes in 2 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Ben primarily contributed to the GitHub Repo Q&A sample by fixing issues related to the selection and saving of OpenAI completion models, involving changes to the model validation process and the user interface. They updated the Semantic Kernel NuGet packages within the Copilot Chat application and addressed an issue in the Klarna plugin by removing an improperly handled HttpClient. Additionally, the user deleted deprecated samples and enhanced function manuals by adding schema and type information.
llmaiartificial-intelligenceopenaisdk
alliscode/semantic-kernel
Jan 2025 - Mar 2026
Integrate cutting-edge LLM technology quickly and easily into your apps
Contributions:173 pushes, 28 branches in 1 year 1 month
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