J Scott Smith

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.

  • Typescript

  • NextJS

  • Tailwind

  • Algolia

  • RushJS

  • React Query

  • Zustand

  • Storybook

  • Figma

  • Contentful

  • Jest

  • Optimizely

August 2022Present

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.

  • TypeScript

  • NextJS

  • Gatsby

  • React Query

  • Storybook

  • Jest

  • Tailwind

  • Figma

  • Prismic

March 2020August 2022

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.

  • TypeScript

  • React

  • React Native

  • Redux

  • MobX

  • PWA

  • A11y

  • NextJS

  • Storybook

  • Jest

  • Sketch

May 2019March 2020

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.

  • JavaScript

  • React

  • Redux

  • Storybook

  • Enzyme

  • Mocha

  • SQL

  • NodeJS

  • Gitflow

  • Agile

November 2017May 2019

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.

  • React

  • Flux

  • JavaScript

  • Canvas

  • Backbone

  • WebGL

  • SCSS

  • GreenSock

April 2015November 2017

Work History

Big Storm Creative Studio

Designer and Web Developer

20142012

CSU Chancellor’s Office

Graphic Designer

2022

California State University Summer Arts

Graphic Designer

20122011

Visual Purple

3D Artist and Animator

20062008

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

20082012

Book Shop Ads: Creative Advertising School

2009

CSU Summer Arts

2009

Long Beach City College

2007

Allan Hancock College

20042007

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