J Scott Smith
Engineering Manager
@Nike Virtual Studios in Los Angeles🌴
Who
Creative software engineer and leader working to develop modern user interfaces for the web. Intent on building user-friendly applications that are performant and accessible while writing code that is tested, scalable and maintainable. Obsessed with finding creative ways to delight and inspire the user.
Experience Highlights
6+ years building modern web products
- Developed apps with frontend frameworks NextJS, Gatsby, and custom React/NodeJS platforms
- Built architectures with TypeScript and created features with test driven development
- Worked with dynamic teams in agile environments to deliver features fast and efficiently
- Reviewed code and managed releases to deliver regular product updates
- Used functional and OOP paradigms to develop DRY maintainable code
- Debugged complex client systems to fix, refactor and improve code iteratively
- Optimized websites for performance, SEO, user accessibility, and ARIA standards
Engineer with a creative edge
- Capable and enjoy being an ambassador between design and engineering teams
- Created rapid prototypes directly with leadership to explore business ideas and new markets
- Worked closely with product managers and designers to iterate upon and improve features
- Crafted rich interactive and animated experiences with Canvas, SVG and WebGL APIs
- Ran the gamut of styling from plain CSS, to SCSS modules, to Emotion, to Tailwind
- Designed UI design systems in Figma and engineered and documented components in Storybook
- Obsessed with the details that provide delight and inspiration to users
Creative with the ability to build
- Designed and expanded brand identities, developed new logos, and built custom typefaces
- Created lo-fidelity wireframes, user flows and prototypes for products and features
- Designed marketing websites, web applications, to meet brand and style guidelines
- Former 3D artist specialized in character rigging, modeling, and animation
- Skilled in motion graphics, animation design, and typographic systems
11+ years of working experience with web technology
- Considerable knowledge of web fundamentals and related tooling
- Utilized graceful degradations or progressive enhancements to modernize interfaces
- Familiar with browser quirks of the past and present for quick debugging and resolving
- Always build mobile first, responsive, and resilient clients to best serve all users
Recent Work History
Nike Virtual Studios
Engineering Manager
Building something new for the swoosh 👉🏻 swoosh.nike, a platform for co-creating, and purchasing Nike virtual goods. Helped scale this new product from onboarding a new community of users, to supporting the first primary sale of a collection. Built out a new design system and component library, packaged in our Rush monorepo, tested with Jest and demonstrated with Storybook. Developed and managed Algolia integration and built out a custom infinite gallery view for virtual goods complete with hundreds of filter options. Helped lead the team in technology discussions by drafting ADRs and RFCs. Mentored and guided team members through PR reviews and 1v1 meetings to facilitate growth amongst the team. Provided timeline estimates for projects to keep product teams informed and engineering on track. Regularly demoed product features and progress to senior leadership teams and the greater NVS experience team.
HMBradley
Senior Software Engineer
Building a new banking experience rewarding high interest rates for customers who save. Worked as a product engineer delivering features to HMBradley's React web app for deposit and credit card products. Reviewed code from team members and managed releases to keep feature development moving forward. Developed numerous stories for components in Storybook for isolated development, improved code sharing and better design collaboration. Additionally helped design new product features to improve user experience using Figma. Completely re-designed our marketing website and expanded HMBradleys branding elements, improved typography and enhanced product feature presentations, then re-built the frontend using Typescript and Gatsby. Helped advance our design system by designing an expanded color palette and button system. Built numerous easter eggs and micro sites for campaigns to delight customers.
Fair
Senior Software Engineer
Worked directly with executive leadership to rapidly prototype and concept new products that would expand Fair's consumer vehicle offerings to new markets. Developed a new mobile onboarding experience for improved UX. Contributed through reviews and feature development to internal tooling utilized by the product operations team. Built and tested shared libraries for design system UI with storybook and React. Managed releases for new features on Fair.com for changing business needs. Fair was an automotive fintech company, and provided a subscription vehicle service.
GumGum
Senior Web Engineer
Full-stack test-driven React development for GumGum's core products to support their computer vision advertising business. Worked in an agile environment developing and deploying new features each sprint, managing product releases and hotfixes, provided mentoring and guidance to team contributors, and reviewed all code contributions through PR workflows. Additional responsibilities included demoing product features to the company and stakeholders, interviewing engineers and design candidates, writing and contributing to GumGum's tech blog, attending meetups and community events, and contributing to the development of Gumdrops, GumGum's open sourced React component UI library.
HAUS
Lead Front-end Developer
Front-end developer leading the production of ReactJS web apps from end-to-end while managing other team members and coordinating with producers to ship projects with tight deadlines. Applied the latest JavaScript patterns to architect rich animated experiences with the latest browser APIs. Focused on building organized, DRY, maintainable codebases with accessible presentation layers.
Work History
Big Storm Creative Studio
Designer and Web Developer
2014 – 2012
CSU Chancellor’s Office
Graphic Designer
2022
California State University Summer Arts
Graphic Designer
2012 – 2011
Visual Purple
3D Artist and Animator
2006 – 2008
Technologies
A non-exhaustive list of technologies or software I've worked with:
TypeScript
JavaScript ES6+
React JS
Redux/MobX
Node JS
Jest/Mocha
REST
GraphQL
SQL/Sequelize
Webpack/Rollup
Babel
Git/GitFlow
Agile/Scrum
Docker
Canvas
GreenSock
Lottie
SCSS/SASS
Tailwind
HTML5/CSS3
Backbone MVC
PHP
Figma
Sketch
Adobe Creative Suite
Interests
UI Design Systems
Animation
WebGL
User Experience
Open source
Web accessibility: A11y/ARIA
Functional programming
Rapid prototyping
React Native
Unit testing
Education
Memorisely
Product Design UI/UX Bootcamp
2022
California State University, Long Beach
BFA Graphic Design
2008 – 2012
Book Shop Ads: Creative Advertising School
2009
CSU Summer Arts
2009
Long Beach City College
2007
Allan Hancock College
2004 – 2007
Awards & Honors
Young Ones Advertising Competition Finalists in Client Pitch
2012
Magna Cum Laude
2012
Fine Arts Affiliates Scholarship
2010
Mary Stephens, V.P. Administration and Finance Purchase Award
2008, 2010, 2012
CSULB President’s List of Honors
2008 – 2012
Santa Maria Arts Council Grant
2007