James Lovallo
Solution Architect / Software Engineer / UX Designer / Brand Strategist
I make stuff for the interwebz 🤪
My Work
My Experience
Web Development Experience
Senior Engineer, Thrivent Financial
January 2022 - Present- Built 2.0 of Money Canvas application for thrivent financial, used by money coaches to offer free financial coaching to anybody who wants it.
- Contributed to a rebuilt design system and component library for the Money Canvas brand, advocating for best practices in UX and accessibility.
- Built and deployed Next.js application, conforming with company monorepo norms and industry best practices for performance, SEO, internationalization and accessibility.
- Lead the development and deployment of a new marketing website for Money Canvas, as a separate React application, integrating with Thrivent Financial's content management system user data, and scheduling through Calendly.
Full Stack Developer, Freelance & Open Source
September 2010 - Present- Full Stack development serving nonprofits, small businesses and political campaigns using a variety of stacks, platforms and hosting solutions, as best suited each client (see Skills above)
- I maintain several open source projects on NPM, including a custom element framework called Ardi. See my website at https://lovallo.dev for details
Web Developer, MRM
June 2019 - December 2022- Performed front-end and back-end tasks to build components using AEM, React, Next.js, Custom Elements, and other frameworks
- Built and debugged sites for clients including Verizon, NY/NJ Port Authority, Anheuser Busch, GlaxoSmithKline, British American Tobacco, and others
- Contributed to remaking MRM’s website as a front-end developer and accessibility specialist
- Pushed my teams to adopt best practices for accessibility and performance
Front End Developer, Xenial (a Global Payments company)
August 2017 - June 2019- Wrote custom front-end code for kiosk, mobile, and online ordering products for restaurant customers
- Refactored front-end interface to reduce project completion time by >90%.
- Created a new component-based design system to make code reusable across kiosk, mobile and drive-thru deployment targets
- Was recognized as Employee of the Quarter for dramatic improvements to the product’s interface that improved the stability and customizability of the product, resulting in faster project turnaround times and increased sales and customer satisfaction
Web Design Specialist, CDK Global
August 2016 - September 2017- Designed and implemented branded marketing resources for the GM family of vehicles and dealers
- Created promotional marketing assets & integrated third-party digital solutions into dealer websites
Teaching Experience
SFF: Detroit, Woodward Academy, Hamtramck Academy
August 2014 - August 2016- Independently planned and taught English Reading Recovery courses, grade levels 7-12
- Employed hybrid online curriculum and flexible scheduling to responsively support student learning
- Worked closely with resource teachers to embrace ESL students and students with IEPs
My Projects
Cuirk
Cuirk is the best way to build a website without any need for a CMS or third party frameworks or tooling. It's like 11ty, but built for the modern age of ES Modules.
Cuick
Cuick is the spiritual successor to Ardi, with a refined API, a smaller footprint, and component library with a unified design system.
Ardi
Ardi is small universal web component library. It will bring joy to your soul, and empower you to bring your components to any web project and know they'll just work.