Hi. I’m Erick, a successful company founder who has been building and managing complex web and software projects for 12 years.

I’m senior softare engineer with deep experience building web applications with React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Next.js, and backend APIs.

I’m veteran WordPress engineer and core contributor who works as software engineer at Automattic. I’ve built many hugely popular commercial WordPress products.

Full Experience

AUTOMATTIC

SENIOR REACT ENGINEER

2022 – Present

  • Crafted elegant, performant, enterprise-scale interfaces with React and TypeScript.
  • Authored hundreds pull requests and performed hundreds of code reviews for Calypso, a complex open-source React project, and other projects. Example: PRs | Code Reviews | Single Big PR
  • Deployed code daily to an application handling 300 million page views and 1 billion API requests per month.
  • Built easy-to-maintain, reusable React components and custom reusable hooks.
  • Refactored legacy code bases from JavaScript class components to TypeScript functional components with hooks.
  • Rebuilt product onboarding to optimize customer conversion.
  • Managed complex state with Redux and built dozens of rest API endpoints.
  • Deployed code in a strong continuous integration and development environment.
  • Wrote unit, integration, and E2E tests with Jest, React Testing Library, Playwright to ensure application performance and reliability.

FREELANCE

SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER

2020 – 2022

  • Developed software and web applications for clients and in-house projects.
  • Designed and implemented an event management application with React and PHP.
  • Developed a real estate listings application with React and PHP, including API integration with new Multiple Listing Service.
  • Build multiple popular WordPress theme and plugin brands, including TeslaThemes, ShowThemes, and WPRealEstate, all of which were later acquired.
  • Built a Next.js application to analyze blockchain data from multiple API providers.
  • Crafted numerous React frontend UIs and interfaces.
  • Maintained complex object oriented backend PHP codebases.
  • Developed APIs with PHP, Node, and AWS, including a lead capture microservice using AWS API gateway and lambda functions.
  • Maintained payment infrastructure and Docker-based Google Cloud hosting.
  • Ran all aspects of the business, including product, marketing, engineering, and finance.

YOKO cONSULTING

SENIOR FULLSTACK ENGINEER

2021 – 2022

  • Architected and implemented a large Next.js application from scratch.
  • Leveraged and optimized Next.js server-side rendering (SSR).
  • Used Redux for state management, React Router for routing, React Query for fetching and writing data, and other common React and node packages and libraries.
  • Collaborated with designers and converted 50+ Figma designs for a React dashboard.
  • Contributed to a ‘headless’ Next.js project with CMS backend.
  • Developed code in Docker containers for team collaboration and consistency.
  • Planned database structures and built API layer with GraphQL.
  • Perform discovery and define project scope and features for clients.

IMAGELY

FOUNDER & CEO

2009 – 2020

  • Founded and managed Imagely. Grew the company to 1 million users, generated $1.5 million in revenue, and scaled to a 15-member team before acquisition in 2020.
  • Led the development of popular photo management software with 500,000 users, including robust backend management, frontend gallery displays, and an e-commerce platform for selling photos.
  • Built complex API integration with U.S. photo print labs using AWS services.
  • Designed and maintained MVC-style, object-oriented applications using PHP.
  • Created and maintained custom NPM and Composer packages.
  • Set up and managed JavaScript build systems using Webpack, Gulp, and Grunt for efficient code compilation and optimization.
  • Developed and implemented systems for smooth release management.
  • Adopted Agile engineering practices for efficiency and project management.
  • Managed cloud hosting with Google Cloud and Docker for deployment and scalability.
  • Oversaw all other aspects of business, including hiring, people management, marketing, finance, development of internal systems, and more.
  • Gave away $50,000 in grants over to fund humanitarian and environmental photography projects.

US DEPT OF STATE

FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER

2008-2009

  • Briefly a US diplomat, slated to be US Economic Officer in Congo Brazzaville and to help the Ambassador re-open the embassy there after years of war. Left to start my company.

UNIV OF WISCONSIN

PHD | LECTURER

2000-2008

  • PhD in Political Science
  • Masters in Applied Economics
  • Lecturer for courses on international politics.