Me
I have a diverse education, both traditional and self-driven, of many different web and app development languages for desktop and mobile. I also have a design background, tons of UI/UX experience, and a surprisingly large knowledge of typography (seriously, let's talk about it). I think all developers should study design, and I believe having this well-rounded education makes me a stronger engineer.
Tools that I use
- Adobe CS
- Aurelia
- CI/CD
- CSS-in-JS
- CSS3
- ES6/7
- Git/Github
- HTML5
- LESS/Sass
- Node.js
- React Native
- React/Redux
- AWS
- Angular
- DevOps
- Firebase
- PHP
- Go
- Java
- Ruby/Rails
- Python
Experience
Transfix, Inc.
2016–Present
New York, New YorkAsheville Convention & Visitors Bureau
2011–2016
Asheville, North CarolinaHouser Shoes, Inc.
2010–2011
Fletcher, North CarolinaFreelance
2009–Present
Asheville, North CarolinaPrecision Printing
2007–2009
Boone, North CarolinaThe Appalachian Newspaper
2006–2008
Boone, North CarolinaAppalachian State University
2005–2009
Boone, North CarolinaTransfix, Inc.
- First front-end engineer
- Refactored web app from Rails, to Aurelia (a terrific JS framework), and finally landing on React/Redux.
- Refactored our public site from Wordpress to Jade, a great (but extinct) static site templating language, and then eventually to 11ty.js.
- Developed an internal library for creating web (React/Redux) apps, mobile (React Native) apps, and shared modules (NPM).
- Brand-new CI/CD pipeline (CircleCI).
- Created standards for networking configurations, CSS and JS syntax linting, and automated testing.
- Developed our web networking standards, using AWS tools, including all of our deployment configurations, client-side security, and multi-region failover.
- Technical lead on the creation of our internal component/design pattern library.
- Rebuilt our Android and iOS apps using React Native.
- Grew a team of cross-functional engineers and designers to continue the work.
Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau
As the only developer on staff, my job was to maintain our entire web presence. We started with a .NET-backed site, and one of my first tasks was to create a matching mobile site and responsive blog theme. While I was on board, I oversaw two redesigns, first with Coldfusion and more recently with a responsive site that was built with Node/MongoDB on the back-end and a custom JS templating language, Goatee, on the front-end. I've been in charge of creating all print- and web-related assets for our various marketing campaigns, all of the data analysis of those campaigns, and two long-form, media-rich, highly interactive, award-winning web applications. I also oversaw the email marketing program, which included designing and creating the email templates, capturing and segmenting demographic data, and the analysis of the data we received after each campaign.
Houser Shoes, Inc.
During my time at Houser Shoes, I was part of a 3 person team that redesigned their e-commerce website. We also created a custom CMS based on Magento, which utilized primarily PHP and MySQL and was tied to their inventory and accounting systems. Photography is a part of my design background, so I was also the lead product photographer. Many hours were spent taking and editing and uploading photos of shoes. Just so many shoes. I was also in charge of the email marketing program, including all of the design and implementation of each campaign, as well as the analysis of the results after each campaign.
Freelance
Developer& Designer& Photographer
Freelance
2009–Present
Asheville, North Carolina
A lot of branding at first, but eventually full-time web development. Mostly Shopify, SquareSpace, or Wordpress, but I recently had a chance to work on a custom Go-backed (Buffalo) UI/component library.
Precision Printing
Designer& Printer
Part-time
2007–2009
Boone, North Carolina
Though this isn't web-related, I still think my experience working in a print shop can be seen in my work as a developer. When a job consists of tens of thousands of prints, the whole process requires an extremely detail-oriented approach, efficiency, and communication among all members of the team to ensure we weren't making mistakes that would cost us a lot of time/paper/ink/money to fix.
The Appalachian Newspaper
I worked with an intern to establish an online presence for The Appalachian newspaper, while still maintaining my role as the lead graphic designer.
Appalachian State University
Graphic Design
BFA
2005–2009
Boone, North Carolina
I chose to study graphic design in an arts department. I already had a grasp on front-end web development techniques and continued to study them during this time, but the curriculum path I chose focused on web design while also teaching color theory, typography, and layout design in a group setting. Outside of designing for the web, we also had the opportunity to learn Flash/Actionscript game development.