Experience

I've been building stuff for the web for a long time. But even after all that time, I still get excited about learning new things and building new stuff.

Not only do I like learning new things, but I also loves using what I knows to help solve problems. I'm always looking for ways to make things better. Wether it's optimizing an application's performance, automating some tedious task, or just making something easier to use, I'm constantly working to make the web, and the world around me a better, more enjoyable place.

Work Stuff

I've had the privilege of working on some really cool projects over the years. From client management tools, to financial services, to environmental initiatives, I've gotten to work at a wide variety of businesses with some amazing people.

Here are a few of the places I've worked and some of the things I've done.

Engineering Team Lead・Greenplaces

This is where I currently work. So far, I've lead a major overhaul of the Greenplaces application. The project was a huge undertaking, handling redesigning the UI, building out a new component library, refactoring and consolidating large portions of the backend, and implementing their first automated testing program to keep it all dependable and easy to maintain. During this whole process I've administered standards across the team, assumed the management of the release process, and have even reduced cycle time by more than 40%!

Software Engineer・Kickfin

When I was at Kickfin, I headed up the frontend development of their latest (at the time) product, taking it from it's inception through to launch and beyond. I also lead development of lots of different features both for their internal tools used to manage the business, and for their external clients. So I got to experience solving problems for different kinds of users, which I really enjoyed!

Software Engineer・Karma Wallet

I joined Karma Wallet very early on, so I was one of only three developers. But that didn't hinder me from building out a custom integration with external financial software, implementing a new automated continuous integration and continuous deployment (or CI/CD for short) pipeline, and also building an entirely new admin portal for internal employees to monitor business reporting and manage the company's users. While doing all this, I was still able to lead the team in migrating to Mobx and Typescript, which were new technologies for them, in an effort to solve some of their existing pain points.

Software Developer 2・Levitate

I landed at Levitate just days after being laid off at the very beginning of the Covid pandemic. While there, I went from having zero React experience to becoming the lead frontend developer of a new gamified sales tool the company was building. As an advocate for knowledge sharing, I led the initiative of building an internal knowledge-base for other teams to use to solve customer problems. Not only that, but I regularly joined client calls to help provide technical support, and in addition to my normal responsibilities, I also oversaw development for the companies marketing website.

Senior Optimization Engineer・Brooks Bell

Brooks Bell was my first professional development job after graduating college. There, I built A/B tests for enterprise client. Within my first 6 months I took the initiative to built a custom command line tool to automate large portions of work, and to align the entire team around a single set of standards for all clients. I maintained that tool for the next 3(ish) years and it allowed us to increase the number of A/B tests we were able to output by more than 400%!

Projects

I honestly love what I do. Building software and solving problems with technology just feels like something I was born to do. That's why, even when I'm not at work, you'll often find me hacking away on some personal project.

Here are a few of the projects I've built over the years.

project preview

A personal productivity app built around David Allen's Getting Things Done system.

UPDATE—On 1 Nov, 2024, BuzyBee was released to the public! I'm continuing to add new features all the time, and have some big things planned to hopefully help others become more motivated to be productive! So bee on the look out over the next few months! (I couldn't help myself)

Several years ago, I adopted the Getting Things Done system to help manage all the things going on in my life. For a long time, I was able to make due with just using a note taking app. But after a while I outgrew that system and needed something a bit more. I spent a few months checking out different tools to replace it, but none really fit. So, like a true engineer, I dove in and decided to build the tool I was looking for...and so BuzyBee was born!

From managing all the tasks and projects going on (and throwing in a little AI to help), to tracking and building habits, BuzyBee has become my #1 place to keep a handle on my personal productivity.

project preview

A Command Line Interface (CLI) for automating the building and maintaining of A/B and Multivariant tests from multiple internal and client libraries.

Igor was one of my earliest projects, but also one of the most successful. It was an internal Command Line Interface (CLI) build tool used to automate the creation and management of different types of A/B and Multivariant tests across different tech stacks and enterprise clients.

When I started working at Brooks Bell I noticed some inefficiencies in the existing development workflow. So I decided to build a solution on my own time that could automate those problems away. Node was new to me at the time, so I took it as an opportunity to learn a new technology and solve some problems at the same time. The tool was a hit and was quickly adopted by the team. I continued to maintain and improve Igor for more than 3 years until I eventually left the company, at which time they forked the project and I laid Igor to rest.

Why was it called Igor, you ask?

Tests were often called "experiments" at Brooks Bell, because they were experimenting with different ideas and solutions on their client's webpages. And just like Igor assisted Dr. Frankenstein in his experiments, this build tool assisted us in building our own experiments. So we named it after the assistant to the mad scientist!

© 2024 Jake Lundberg