Hello! I am Samantha Withers. I am a Front-end Developer and Usability Consultant with experience wire-framing, rapidly prototyping, and developing web applications with particular experience in financial secure access websites. For a few projects I've had the privilege of being the primary/sole developer where I could see a project through its entire lifecycle. This resulted in valuable top-down project participation and following experiences:
- NPM and Bower ramp project ramp up including getting set up wtih Ember.js and helping establish development processes for the team.
- Participating in resource gathering meetings directly with clients.
- Close Colaboration with design and information architects to streamline all further development efforts and better align legacy or enterprise systems with new design approaches.
- Using rapid prototyping tools like Axure to demonstrate concepts and workflows during on-site meetings to assist in client sign-off.
- Reviewing a project plan with timeline due dates and assisting in scoping out development efforts with project manager and QA teams.
- Scoping out the effort of work for items outside the project definition.
- Experience looking at legacy code to evaluate if an update can realistically be added and providing advice as to its value to the customer vs. work cost.
- Following and creating business requirements documents and tech standards to be used for products offered. Particular experience developing responsive approach for Financial Secure Access Applications.
- Developing and building product per client specifications and following styleguide working to create the most fluent and global css solutions.
- Using GIT to work with other developers and push development efforts to QA and UAT environments for testing.
- Working within applications such as JIRA to coordinate with QA Teams, track and triage bugs, and fix for next release.
- Speaking directly with clients about certain UAT issues and proposing custom solutions that can both satisfy client and development needs.
- Post-Production enhancements and processes for updating.
I like clean code, so I strive to incorporate the industry's top code standards including HTML5, CSS3, jQuery Mobile and Progressive Enhancement. However, I've learned through experience you that can't build Rome in a day. I work to consider the product's platform, the user's behavior, client interaction, and the pros/cons to how best update to the brightest and fastest. A project's main goal is to be thoroughly completed and polished with quality and pride. My philosophy is it's important to keep the big picture in mind and not get carried away with the snazzy details (albeit how tempting the snazzy may be).
Mobile first Design. I have strong experience with responsive/mobile design/development for cross device functionality (mobile handheld, tablet, desktop) and cross browser compatibility and ADA compliance. Working in the financial industry with archaic code has taught me to think outside the box.
I have hobbies. I like to learn and keep busy. I suffer from the accute dispostion of becoming stuffy and needing to get fresh air. I enjoy walks and hiking and going to the gym. I just recently taught myself how to knit because... why not? My second ever knitting project after a small hat, is a whole sweater. I have faith in my problem solving skills and YouTube tutorials.
I have a Master's degree. I know in the developers world that doesn't seem very applicible, especially one in education, however that's exactly why I always seem to find myself put in situations where I collaborate with other people and clients. I know I'm an interesting mix of a nerdy coder, a design enthusiest, and a people person. My Master's degree taught me about the importance of how web applications approach to intuitive understanding can make or break great usability.