Matthew Davies
Senior Software Engineer in California
Always looking to learn new things!
About
Software Engineer with a focus on frontend technologies and media creator on the side
Work Experience
Leading frontend architecture with a brand new React application.
As the first full-time frontend engineer at the firm, I was tasked with migrating the firm's internal JavaFX portal to a brand new web portal. I was able to build the application from the ground up with React/Redux, TypeScript, GraphQL streaming via AWS AppSync, and modern scoped CSS styling. I gained a significant amount of AWS knowledge, as well as more backend skills via the UI middleware I wrote for the portal.
Individual contributor role with a focus on frontend technologies.
As a senior software engineer, my time was split between both day-to-day individual contributor work as well as leadership/mentorship of other software engineers. Since transitioning into this role, I have learned how to balance my time between writing & shipping quality code on time and helping other team members solve & implement solutions.
I was am a part of a leadership team. Since inception, we have completed many major projects/initiatives, of which I've been a major part:
- Consolidated our primary frontend into a single repository, decreasing our build times by at least 80%, as well as increasing overall developer productivity by immeasurable amounts
- Moved our entire codebase in a modern direction without disrupting the day to day business activities. We were able to rewrite portions in an incremental manner, moving towards the end goal of modernizing without impacting business requirements of shipping new features.
- Coached numerous teams/team members on how to use our frontend to implement the featureset(s) that they needed
- Completely rewritten our entire build system tooling from end to end
- Implemented end to end & unit testing, as well as CI tooling to go along with PRs & commits
- Consolidated our coding style into a more readable & maintainable style.
Some other highlights of my career at Oportun:
- Was a part of three major projects that increased our overall revenue
- Worked as the primary frontend engineer on part of our application where I served the role of architect & engineer for that part of the frontend application. While I'm not currently the primary maintainer of said project, my code from three years ago still ships to production today, largely unchanged
- Have spent serious amounts of time working on researching modernizing our frontend; everything from hybridizing our AngularJS application with Angular 9, to shipping React embedded inside AngularJS.
For three years I worked as the front-end developer for the Epiphany Analytics platform. During the time I worked there, we almost completely re-wrote the platform from the ground up, as well as underwent three revisions of the platform.
- Learned the ins and outs of AngularJS; both its pros and cons
- Assisted in a rewrite of our analytics platform, primarily frontend, but some backend work as well
- Worked extensively with many different-front end technologies, including JavaScript/HTML/CSS in general, Node, LESS, Gulp, Jade (now Pug)
- Gained knowledge of how market research & business intelligence operate
- Gained understanding of GIS systems including PostGIS & QGIS, as well leveraging front-end technologies such as Leaflet.
I worked as a full-stack web developer, mastering PHP, HTML, JS, and CSS.
- Aided in the creation and maintenance of many websites
- Assisted in the continued development of a CMS (content management) system used by most of our clients
- Took part in the day-to-day consulting activities such as on-site visits and project quotes
- Implemented designs in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Learned important working skills such as time management
Side Projects
AngularJS to React migration of the Epiphany Analytics platform.
I am currently working on moving the entire frontend off old legacy version of build tools, frameworks, and other dependencies while retaining backwards compatibility.