After tackling product work for a while, leadership thought I could help out by owning the frontend architecture at Bluprint. The frontend applications were too large and were showing their age with lava-layer implementations, so I was tasked with helping tackle those problems to hopefully simplify future product work and improve site performance.In planning, we were getting ready to start moving to smaller front ends and reimagine the applications with simpler, more-performant tech. The chief concerns in this process were speeding up dev work by reducing implementation complexity, improving our render performance across the site, and building more granular tools for internal stakeholders to make site updates.Unfortunately, after being in this position for a short time, we learned that our parent company wouldn’t be able to support us through the economic impact of COVID-19 due to how it impacted the broader business performance.

Bluprint reached out to me to get some help with the heavy lifting on their frontend applications. They were operating a vendor CMS where they’d performed most of their work over the previous 12 months and were itching to get some more work performed in their e-commerce stack, which was built in React.I came on board and immediately went to work helping out with more structural work in the codebases to help support the interface work needed to improve funnel performance, add additional benefits to site membership, and improve the process for stakeholders.Prior to this position, I’d spent most of my career working on top of Rails stacks of various shapes and sizes. This was my first exposure to a Java microservices API and it was an interesting change of pace. I wasn’t a contributor to that portion of the application, but I got an opportunity to read and observe the architecture, which was great.Most of the work was spent helping accomplish tougher and larger projects for the product team, helping respond to urgent business needs, and acting as the most technical point of contact on the front end team.

I started at Homebot to help them with a domain-expertise gap, as they had a great team of full-stack and backend Rails developers but had the appetite to spend more time tying their front end applications together. They wanted to bring in someone who was comfortable working in the Angular 1 codebase that had been used to construct their MVP, as well as a React codebase that was assembled by a vendor. We worked together to try and un-stick some of their product objectives that depended on moving fast in both of those codebases.In addition to helping flesh out the React stack, I got great exposure to the data side of their business. Their applications are highly tailored to the end-user and there was a lot of complexity in determining when to show or hide information so that folks could consume the available information easily. We built out a mapping application with a large amount of geodata, spent a good deal of time in D3, and ported many of their older interfaces to React as product objectives allowed.They’re a great company, moving at breakneck speed to make a product to help better educate folks on the value of homes and homeownership.

I rejoined the Kissmetrics team to continue product development on new features as the company worked towards customer engagement automation goals. We continued to build on our React stack, enabling SaaS and E-commerce customers to better identify quality users as well as reach out to them directly.I got a chance to help lead new stack development as we pivoted business objectives and began recreating our product, leaving behind less valuable functionality. It was a great experience in building consensus within product and engineering teams, as well as an opportunity to re-architect existing functionality.At its core, the product we built allowed clients to identify meaningful users within their own products and take actions like* Abandoned-cart emails* Query users by exposure to advertising campaigns or site features and then pass that information along for remarketing* Monitor performance of subgroups and their funnel completion or repurchase rateThe move from more general-purpose analytics to engagement helped us drive internal growth, reinvent a product in a saturated industry, and retool our market fit. We didn’t get traction as quickly as we needed, however, and my name came up in a later round of layoffs.This was my first exposure to getting laid off and that experience in-and-of-itself was incredibly valuable for my career. It pushed me out of the nest, gave me an opportunity to explore the Denver tech scene a bit more, and caused me to start critically evaluating my skillset in the market.

I joined Modern Market to evaluate the capabilities of their existing vendors and build internal functionality to enhance the guest experience. It was a largely self-driven position, assisting department heads with internal challenges. Moving from a product development position to assist a retail organization was a great opportunity to learn about the differences in industries.The lion's share of my time was spent working on projects for leadership. There were a lot of problems with myriad systems needing to share information in a timely fashion so that internal stakeholders can act quickly. We worked on improvements to HR workflows, hosting of materials for their training team, more robust behaviors for their online ordering system, and marketing automation.

I got my introduction to product development at Kissmetrics, initially helping chop up a monolithic Sinatra application into constituent parts. I was very green at the time I came on board, and it was a wonderful opportunity to work with experienced engineers.Working with the Frontend Architect, as well as several other frontend engineers, we rebuilt huge swaths of product, moving from a MooTools stack to early adoption of React. Most of the front end challenges revolved around our internal query interface, state management, and complex visualizations for users.I learned a lot about modern JavaScript libraries and got exposure to other elements of the back end stack that I would not have discovered without the opportunity, as well as a deeper understanding of design challenges in modern applications.

I had a lot of exposure to HTML and CSS throughout adolescence, as well as some Java, so I decided to start freelancing while in school to earn extra money.Initially, I worked for small businesses and agencies creating simple websites using only markup and styles. I worked on local real estate and retail sites, building basic online brochures. It was a great experience to get my feet underneath me, learning the ins and outs of the DOM, as well as starting my foray into production-quality programming work.In 2008, I was introduced to digital signage software, created by Micros Systems, with a client who needed to set the system up. While it was simple templating initially, it was a great opportunity to branch out and start working with undocumented systems. I did my first implementation for a restaurant called Spud Bros in Boulder, Colorado, ensuring that they could manage their signage from the in-store computer. This led to an introduction to Modern Market, which was opening its first store in 2009, using the same system.I continued working on freelance projects such as Wordpress installations and general templating until I was approached by Larkburger in 2011 to build a custom digital signage application for their restaurants. I created an MVC digital signage application in CakePHP for their consumption that is still in use today. This was a great opportunity to dig into custom web applications, as I had mostly worked on the frontend up to this point. The resulting application hosted images and JSON files. I set up in-store Linux boxes to serve as kiosks that would connect to the central web server, pulling images, menu schedules, and updates as needed.I continued to work on freelance projects for a time, but lost interest in the client management aspects of the work and decided to slowly wind down my projects.

HMH was my first full-time development job. I worked underneath their Director of Technology building client sites in industries ranging from Banking and Financial Services to Lumber Products. I utilized a wide array of backend technologies like ASP, PHP (predominantly WordPress and Drupal), and Ruby to build out concepts, with simple frontends using jQuery and LESS.The agency experience was invaluable, as it exposed me to many stakeholder concerns and taught me how to communicate technical concepts to a wide variety of audiences. When I wasn't actively building for a client, I'd help scope project concepts with our client teams.During my time, I got a chance to dig more deeply into technologies I was interested in, including Rails, Grunt, and Yeoman.

I started at Yardhouse as an expediter, helping time orders in the kitchen and ensure ticket accuracy. When I started, the business was still using a paper ticket system that required a lot of verbal communication between the expo and the cooks to ensure everything went smoothly. The skill ceiling on getting orders out was actually very high and it was an incredibly exciting job as a result.Shortly after opening the location, I was promoted to Trainer and spent a good deal of time with new hires, teaching them the menu and how the kitchen operated. It was a fun experience for quite a while, but I eventually found myself itching to get into a career.During this time, I made the decision to drop out of college and I began focusing on freelance projects in web development. This wasn’t my first exposure to development, but this was when I decided that I was going to pursue it actively.

I started as a Barista, slinging coffee on 28th street in Boulder, Colorado while pursuing my degree at CU Boulder. This was my first significant job in college and I learned a ton from my time there.I spent my first year learning the business and developing the muscle memory required to operate a location. All of the business systems were much tighter than previous retail experiences I’d had and it was great exposure. The muscle memory is an incredibly important component of working in this style of business as most of your KPIs exist on top of your day-to-day service requirements.After working there for one year, I was promoted to Shift Supervisor and got my hands dirty with much tougher work. I was involved in coaching, inventory management, and pushing the team to hit sales goals. I was measured against sales performance, store cleanliness, and other internal metrics and got consistently high reviews. Initially I thought I would pursue the management track but left to help open a Yardhouse in Denver, Colorado.