User-focused, front-end developer with a passion for building responsive, nimble, and accessible web interfaces. Contributor and maintainer of Open Source projects, including scrollNav.js, a JavaScript plugin with thousands of installations. Having worked remotely for eleven of the last twelve years, plus ten years prior to that as an independent carpenter, I understand how to be accountable and deliver on schedule. I'm currently seeking full-time opportunities that put users first, appreciate quality code practices, and encourage regular contributions to Open Source and skill development.
Amplitude | May 2022-Current
Infrastructure Engineer responsible for contributing to our Design System, improving code quality, mentoring junior engineers, and managing the systems and dependencies relied on by our product teams, with a focus on improving the engineering team's processes, code quality, performance, and accessibility.
- Cerulean Design System
- Introduced an efficient icon system that reduced asset delivery size and standardized the icon format.
- Updated the button components, reducing the complexity and overlap of the existing buttons, and improving the usage familiarity by our product engineers.
- Created a series of codemod utilities to reduce the effort required for completing migrations.
- Improved the existing Design System by introducing polymorphic typing, creating multiple new components, and improving existing components.
- Localization Improvements
- Introduced the i18next library with namespacing and async loading to severely reduce the size of translation resources.
- Initiated the migration of 26k strings from ICU to i18next format.
- Led the search, discovery, and implementation of Smartling to manage translations (procurement and implementation currently underway).
- Team process improvements
- Improved the Design System documentation, writing usage guides and reorganizing the content to lead consuming teams through the experience of using our system.
- Developed a system for regularlly collecting and reviewing results from our internal Design System survey to guide the direction of our team and our roadmap.
GoFundMe | Aug 2021-Apr 2022
UI Engineer responsible for leading our Design System project, mentoring engineers and designers throughout the organization, advising project teams on development processes, and introducing GoFundMe to library management and development. Assisted on the GoFundMe homepage refresh introducing the design system to the project, developing multiple core components within it, and improving performance and accessibility.
- Heart Design System
- Led our Design System team of four from an initial idea to a performing team.
- Worked directly with application teams to ensure their needs are being met.
- Initiated publishing GoFundMe's first Open Source project.
- GoFundMe homepage
- Assisted the team responsible for managing our homepage to help rebuild and deploy a much needed refresh within 30 days.
- Raised our Lighthouse performance score from a 61 to a 89 and our accessibility score from a 53 to a 97.
- Led the integration with our Design System to help reduce duplicative effort and time-to-completion.
- Continued to advise the team on improvements and the conversion from vanilla Javascript to React.
GoFundMe | 2019-2021
UI Engineer responsible for the creation and maintenance of shared UI components while working on the upgrade and redesign of the GoFundMe donation flow that eventually lead to the creation of the GoFundMe design system. In addition to day-to-day workload, focused on mentorship of engineers and designers within our product team, and driving improvements to our processes, code quality, performance, and accessibility.
- Donation flow
- Core member of the development team responsible for a major redesign and successful re-launch of the GoFundMe donation flow processing over 32 million donations per year.
- Continued front-end improvements to the fundraiser page as well as assisting other teams on improving code quality, performance, and accessibility.
- Heart Design System
- Led the creation of GoFundMe's design system team as Project Manager and Lead Developer.
- Created and maintained the build and publishing pipelines.
- Managed relationships with downstream application teams to ensure timely and proper integration.
GoFundMe | 2018-2019
UI Engineer responsible for introducing modern, reusable components, that are accessible and performant while working on the upgrade and redesign of the GoFundMe fundraiser page. Additionally worked on upgrading our shared design assets, improving our unit testing coverage, and code review process.
- Fundraiser page
- Core member of the development team responsible for a major redesign and successful re-launch of the GoFundMe fundraiser page handling over 41 million visitors per year.
- Raised our Lighthouse performance score from a 41 to a 92 and our accessibility score from a 54 to a 97.
- Responsible for ensuring code quality and performance were maintained throughout the project.
- Improved Continuous Integration with updates to the unit tests and release scripts.
- UI Icons
- Led an upgrade of the icons used throughout GoFundMe from a random assortment of free icons found online to a library of consistently designed and performant SVG icons.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau | 2015-2018
Front-end developer and multimedia assistant responsible for building financial tools and information for the American public as well as the internal tools that drive it. In addition to regular work projects, contributions include improving the development team's best practices and authoring guides on Code Reviews, Atomic Design, and Browser Support.
- ConsumerFinace.gov | GitHub
- Core member of the development team responsible for a major redesign and successful re-launch of the Bureau's public facing website.
- Continued front-end improvements to the website as well as individual projects such as Scrum Master and front-end developer of Money as You Grow
- Developed an Open Source and 508 complaint typeahead multi-select component.
- Capital Framework and Design Manual | Github
- Led the foundational upgrade of the Bureau's design system to modular components, creating a single design language, reducing duplicate code, and improving performance.
- Led an icon upgrade of both the Bureau's design system and the dependent projects from an icon font to SVG icons improving accessibility and performance.
- Improved Continuous Integration with updates to the unit tests and release scripts
- Your Money, Your Goals: Behind on Bills and Everyone has a story: Meet Ana
- Traveled with the multimedia team on location throughout the US as a stills photographer/first camera operator.
- Development Guides
Consumer Media Network (now HigherEducation.com) | 2012-2015
Responsible for building, releasing, and maintaining the company's top web assets. I brought modern tools and workflows to the development team, introducing Sass, Git, Responsive Design principles, and improved workflows. Created multiple reusable modules within the company and released two as Open Source (scrollNav.js and Genesis Evolution).
- MedicalBillingandCoding.org
- Informational website providing advice to visitors interested in careers in Medical Billing and Coding.
- Built the front-end and back-end while coordinating with a graphic designer and content writer.
- PublicHealth.org (2014)
- Informational website providing educational and career advice to visitors interested in careers in the Public Health field.
- Built the front-end and back-end while coordinating with a graphic designer and content writer.
- AcademicEarth.org
- Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) aggregator to assist users in discovering the right online courses for their needs or interests.
- Responsible for front-end development while coordinating with a MOOC subject expert, graphic designer, and back-end developer.
2011-Current | Development, Design, and Photography
In addition to my full-time duties I've worked on freelance and personal projects as a designer, developer, and photographer. My photo style leans toward documentary with a heavy emphasis on outdoor activities.
- jimmynotjim.com
- Photo portfolio marketing to potential clients and providing a portal for print sales.
- Built with Jekyll, the theme is an entirely custom design and build.
- scrollNav.com | Github
- A lightweight javascript plugin that scans page content and generates a pin-able Table of Contents.
- Initially built as an internal project while at Consumer Media Network, the Open Source component and accompanying website were entirely built from scratch.
- Current development on pause due to limited time and resources.
- typecardsapp.com | Github
- An online typographic definitions study guide and search tool.
- Built on WordPress as an experiment using HTML and JavaScript to create a native app like experience on mobile devices. All design and development is custom and released on Github.
2011-2012 | Apprentice
My time at Atedrake guided my direction toward front-end development and shaped my standards for quality code practices. Responsibilities included assisting with research, design, and development on an array of projects.
2001-2012
For the ten years prior to transitioning to the web I earned my keep as a residential carpenter. Although seemingly different fields on the surface, I find carpentry and development to be very similar at their core. They both require attention to detail, the ability to solve complex problems with a general idea of the intended outcome, and the requirement to self-manage time and workload. Additionally, building a website or app is similar to building a home, starting with a solid foundation, and working up through framework, surfaces, and eventually details that as a whole, serve as one functional unit.
- Semantic HTML markup and document structure.
- Latest updates to CSS.
- Latest updates to JavaScript including ES6.
- Best practices for accessibility including 508 compliance.
- Utilizing progressive enhancement to support users of both old and new browsers and devices.
- Building sites for unknown device dimensions and capabilities via responsive design.
- Collaborative workflows with Git and GitHub.
- Build tools including Grunt, Gulp, and NPM scripts.
- Test Driven Development via Mocha and Jest.
- Five years as a documentary/event photographer.
- First camera operator for multiple CFPB documentary videos.
- Editor for CFPB internal videos and Public Service Announcements.
- Served as project lead for multiple projects.
- Served as scrum master for multiple projects.
- Achieved Eagle Scout rank and continue to serve BSA as unit and district leader in San Diego.
- Created personal projects to explore concepts, skills, and libraries outside of my day-to-day responsibilities.
- Authored multiple guides on best practices and workflows.
- Led project teams in daily standup, working sessions, and sprint reviews.
- 100% remote employment for eleven of the last twelve years.
- Independent carpenter for ten years prior.
- OOCSS, SMACCS, and BEM
- Atomic Design principals
- Sass, PostCSS, Vanilla Extract
- eslint/stylelint, jest/testing-library, jscodeshift
- React, Typescript, i18next
- Boy Scouts of America - Achieved the rank of Eagle Scout as a youth, the Golden Sparkplug Award as an adult.
- Loft 112 Morrison (local art gallery) - Contributing artist (including a month long feature) and gallery advisor.
- Received two awards for exceptional service while at CFPB.
- Received three awards from my peers for collaboration and helpfulness while at GoFundMe.