Firesqueak
Firesqueak is an e-commerce consultancy that I worked with as a contractor and later as an employee. I was a consultant for two of their clients and I also built one of the companyโs products.
E-Commerce Product
TL;DR
Designed and built an e-commerce product for a software consultancy.
Description
I built the V1 of an e-commerce product for Firesqueak with one other engineer.
Inspired by shops that had sold out of remote work equipment at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to build a product that would give stores the ability to provide in-stock notifications. We started with support for Shopify but designed the app with other e-commerce platforms in-mind.
I researched, designed, and developed the app. The core features were:
- Support for SMS in-stock notifications.
- An optional JavaScript snippet to add an in-stock notification UI to a PDP.
- A REST API backend that the in-stock notification UI integrated with.
- A SPA dashboard for the merchant admin experience, which included:
- Templating to customize the notification messaging.
- Message previewing to verify template customizations.
- Reporting to highlight the most in-demand products.
- Charting to display the number of messages sent per day.
- JWT authentication to embed the UI within Shopifyโs admin dashboard.
- OAuth authorization to support Shopifyโs app installation flow.
I also handled the operational work by setting up hosting, provisioning, CI/CD, and monitoring. The product was a V1, but the technical foundation was mature.
Tech
- Frontend (Front)
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- React
- Frontend (Back)
- JavaScript
- Node
- Next
- Fastify
- Backend
- Ruby
- Rails
- Sidekiq
- Data
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- Platform
- Shopify
- Heroku
Client Project - Footwear Brand
TL;DR
Built, iterated, and maintained the frontend of an e-commerce site for a footwear brand.
Description
I built a new Shopify site for a footwear brand that specializes in work-wear and clothing for outdoor activities.
The client had an existing e-commerce site but, due to the limitations of their platform, they had issues with velocity and content management. I worked with one other Firesqueak engineer to build the Shopify theme frontend and to support the clientโs Shopify/SAP integration on the backend.
This project was a test of my frontend development skills, but my teammate and I divided work based on front-of-the-frontend vs back-of-the-frontend lines. I focused on the back-of-the-frontend by:
- Configuring the build toolchain to enable the use of modern web development features while still supporting IE11.
- Selecting a minimal set of dependencies to support complex interactions without sacrificing performance.
- Implementing the site features that required non-trivial algorithms and data manipulation such as:
- Multi-select filtering on the PLP.
- Dynamically displaying inventory status depending on selected options on the PDP.
- Creating command-line tools to automate tasks.
- Setting up CI/CD pipelines.
I also contributed to the front-of-the-frontend by:
- Creating the component library and style guide from the designs.
- Implementing responsive layouts for the PDP and PLP.
- Ensuring that all interactive components were accessible and SEO-friendly.
The project was intense but we delivered to spec, on-time, and with no production issues. The project was a success and we exceeded the clientโs expectations with the siteโs extensibility and robustness.
Tech
- Frontend (Front)
- HTML
- SCSS
- JavaScript
- Stimulus
- MobX
- Frontend (Back)
- JavaScript
- Node
- Rollup
- Platform
- Shopify
- AWS
Client Project - Footwear Brand
TL;DR
Built an e-commerce ETL pipeline for a footwear brand.
Description
I built an ETL pipeline for the finance team of a popular, eco-friendly footwear brand.
The client operated several geographically distinct Shopify sites but needed to collect all transaction and payment data into SAP as a single source of truth for accounting. They had a single in-house engineer and a business stakeholder that I partnered with, but otherwise I worked independently yet transparently.
In the first week I was able to create a technical spec from loose business requirements and by the following week I had a functioning V1. I delivered well ahead-of-schedule with zero production issues. The client saved hundreds of thousands of dollars that they would have otherwise needed to pay to SAP consultants.
Tech
- Backend
- JavaScript
- Node
- Platform
- Shopify
- AWS
- Designed and built a Shopify app for inventory notifications targeting medium-to-large sized stores.
- Led a small team in the development, integration, and maintenance of a Shopify site for a footwear brand; generated $1,000,000+ of client revenue within 3 months of launch.
- Created a Shopify to ERP integration for a footwear brand; saved the client $250,000+ in SAP consultant fees and months of development time.
- Met with clients, wrote specifications, and estimated development effort during initial contract engagements.