Live on Indiegogo!

The Gecko Oven Cam campaign on was live on Indiegogo August through September. It fell short of the funding goal to move into final production. The Indiegogo page includes a variety of media, incluing graphics and videos, I created to highlight the Oven Cam.

Indiegogo funding page

App development

I built the Oven Cam app using Ionic, an open source, front-end SDK, which allows it to be deployed as a native iOS and Android app. The app features user authentication using Google Firebase (including Facebook and Email authentication), new camera setup over BLE, custom timers with local push notifications, Google Firebase Cloud Firestore database to get live camera power and battery level information, and connection to the camera over local Wi-Fi for image streaming.

Techy goodness aside, the UI design makes it's super easy to setup a new camera and start the oven monitoring in minutes.

Product and software design

The Oven Cam was the first time I dabbled in any physical product and hardware design. The product design included creation of a patent pending design for attaching the camera to the outside of an oven. I also did the 3d modeling for the camera case and built the physical prototypes of the oven camera. The internal circuit design uses a Raspberry Pi linux computer, digital camera, power management chip, lithium ion battery, analog to digital converter chip, status led lights, power button, and lots of other little resistors, diodes, and capacitors.

The camera software runs on Raspbian, a flavor of Debian Linux. On first startup a node server runs, allowing the client app to connect to the camera over BLE and configure the Wi-Fi connection. An Express server controls the camera hardware and serves images to the client app. Python scripts monitor the analog to digital converter chip to get battery level information. Battery level and power status information are updated in real time using Google Firebase Cloud Firestore database.

Video production

I did all filming and editing for each marketing video produced for the Indiegogo funding page and social media marketing.

Indiegogo product video
Social media marketing video

Rebrand

In 2016, TIAA went through a major rebranding effort to change it's name, logo and overall brand. My role was to lead the front-end development team building the all-new TIAA.org public site and was one of the primary points of contact for the Online Technology department. This included working with business partners from all areas of the company, from marketing, digital, and design, to internal IT.

This was a herculean effort for a company the size of TIAA.

It entailed not only designing and building an all-new, public marketing site, but also a UI system to be used by all TIAA websites for years to come. I lead the charge in the design of a new UI style guide and framework, developing all the new UI components, creating prototypes and concepts for usability testing, and finally delivering a new site with hundreds of new pages and web apps.

My hands on experience leading a team through this large-scaled program puts me in a unique position to handle projects of any size.

Development manager

Resource management is a critical part of delivering successful projects. I managed a team of ten front-end architects and developers working on location, from home, and overseas. My experience leading this diverse team has helped me develop the skills necessary to coordinate and manage large scale projects.

The key areas of TIAA that I oversaw for the front-end team included the public site (TIAA.org), rebrand, UI style guide, email templates, TIAA Direct banking public site, and TIAA Asset Management site.

Technology lead

As technology lead, I designed and led the team that built some of the first automated, front-end build systems used at TIAA. Some of the first technologies my team helped introduce at TIAA included mobile-first design, SASS, Gulp, Node.js, Mustache, RequireJS, and ECMAScript 2015 (ES6).

My first technology lead role at TIAA began with architecting and overseeing the front-end system used by our secure, institutional administrator's website. This grew to include the public site (TIAA.org), UI style guide, TIAA Direct banking public site, TIAA Asset Management site, email templates, rebrand, TIAA.org mobile site, and accessibility.

I've worked with cutting edge technology and will continue to be at the forefront using the latest tech to speed up time to market, increase productivity, and create engaging experiences.

UI style guide

A User Interface (UI) style guide defines the styles and standards for a company to help guide the creation of consistent websites and other display mediums. At TIAA, I built and maintained the style guides used by a team of over fifty UI developers and referenced by numerous other business partners. This involved working directly with UX partners to understand the design standards and rules of use, then develop the final code to be used on the websites.

It takes a deep understanding of the brand, design system, and front-end coding to create an effective style guide. Let's chat about your business and start working toward designing a consistent and on-brand web experience.

Prototypes and concepts

From pencil and paper designs to clickable, interactive prototypes, being able to get initial designs and ideas tested early saves time and money. One of my primary roles during my time at TIAA was to create these clickable prototypes used in usability testing, presentations to stakeholders, and ultimately to create final web pages and apps.

In addition to creating prototypes for existing projects, I was tasked with envisioning the future state of our websites. These concepts stretched the boundaries of what was currently possible and helped push our technological abilities to the next generation. I want to use this forward thinking and experience to help propel you and your business into the next generation.

Front-end development

Front-end development is really the "nuts and bolts" of a website; it's the code behind everything you see on a web page. At TIAA, I built components (buttons, navigation menus, carousels, etc.) and web pages that worked across browsers and devices, and were optimized for performance.

This hands-on knowledge is essential for overseeing and building great looking, reliable websites. Whether we are creating a single page marketing site for your new product or orchestrating a team of developers creating a complex mobile and web app, you can have confidence in my proven track record and expert oversight.