James Y.

I am a software engineer with over 10+ years of experience with technologies such as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. I am focused on creating robust user-experiences for the web using the latest frontend technologies. I have led teams that saw positive sales impacts.

I was working on a large scale consumer-facing sales platform for a previous client that had email communications as part of its requirements. There were several dozen emails that needed to be created and styled for the various user communications. Because emails have to be written and styled out entirely by hand using out of date web development techniques, the team originally estimated the work to create all of the email templates at 3 sprints, or around 6 weeks. I agreed with the team’s estimate but thought there had to be a better way to create these email templates within our tech stack that would be faster and less tedious. We had set aside some time to research a solution and I asked if I could take ownership of this task. I spent a few days researching a couple of tools, some of which were paid services and others free javascript libraries, and tested each tool to see which had the best combination of speed of use and developer ease of use. I compiled a report that documented each tool I tested, its pros and cons, and my personal recommendation. Then I shared that report with the team for feedback. We took a vote on which tool to use. Then in order to learn the new tool, I pair programmed one of the email templates with another developer as a proof of concept and as a way to train the team on how to use the tool. Once we finished the first proof of concept I and my original pair each trained another developer on the team to use the tool by tackling another email template. In the end, we finished all 20+ templates in a single sprint (2 weeks) and had a flexible and responsive tool to work with when the client added more email templates to the project. The project went on to increase sales by 55% within the first 6 months of launch.

My coworkers often say that my strengths are the way I combine deep technical knowledge, a growth mindset, and genuine kindness toward my teammates. I am equally at home when I spend my time solving deeply technical problems as I am learning new skills or teaching new skills to my teammates. I work to create an atmosphere of curiosity and support for my teams. These are the kinds of teams that I thrive in so I constantly look for ways to encourage these behaviors on my teams. In my experience, the technology work will take care of itself if the team members are comfortable and happy.