Itemize was my first job in application development out of college. The small team took an interest in me during the interview for a few reasons. Their lead engineer was beginning to assess different front-end solutions and asked for my opinion about the up-and-coming Angular framework. I told him that you didn’t need Angular and he liked that I had the honesty to provide my opinion where all others would just agree. The folks leading the product also enjoyed all of the side projects I did; focusing on solving problems in style.

My first task was to add a pie chart to their mobile web view; something that they expected to take several weeks. I had a solution but the first Friday. From here, I was tasked to make small changes to their .NET application UI which was painful. I took it upon myself to begin creating a new web app; one that would have been much easier to update.

Once the CEO got wind of the new web app, he embraced it as a new direction and we eventually launched it within my first year working with the team. We also added many new features, such as saved filters and a team management system.

I also sought to improve the data-entry experience for the team, redesigning their platform to be more keyboard-focused. Less time traveling with the mouse could mean more documents processed. I worked closely with the team members to understand their pain points and attempt to provide shortcut solutions to significantly speed up their work.

I also redesigned their marketing site which included a fun receipt capturing game for engagement. I integrated with the WordPress CMS so the marketing team could make easy updates and add components with custom shortcodes. I was able to connect the Stripe API with the dashboard so pricing could be updated easily.

Eventually, I was trusted to lead the hiring process for other engineers. I’d reach out to candidates in the talent management platform, and schedule the interviews. I would also create a system to help the team assess the candidate in a fair and unbiased manner.