Categories
Architecture demand-side Distributed Teams eCommerce Frontend Full-Stack Management Process Prototyping supply-side

Styleguide

(CrowdFlower : 8/15-10/15)

In late August 2015, given previous successes in the year, I was tapped to lead the engineering team for delvering a visual identiy refresh (in conjunction with conference-ready AI deliverable) by early October.

Week 1

  • took Bootstrap 3/Flat UI/custom styling from Designer and created a static page as ‘gold standard’ for other engineers to reference
  • identified priority routes on which the new design would need to be rolled out
reference page

Week 2

  • created a new layout for and and began rolling out new design on the Rails app
  • drafted a plan for updating the Merb app seamlessly
  • began to onboard other engineers

Weeks 3-5

  • prototyped and tested the idea for asset precompiling in the Rails app and replacing the base assets of the Merb app
  • continued polishing
  • guided other engineers on implementation
  • continued polishing

Week 6

  • coordinated bug-free deploy in conjunction with Marketing (who was working for similarly refreshing the third-party-hosted home page)

Results

  • Organized work of four engineers (two local incl. CTO, two remote) as Tech Lead while planning (and tracking against) engineering sprints and deliverables over two months.
Categories
Architecture demand-side eCommerce Frontend Full-Stack Innovation Machine Learning Management

Delivering AI

(CrowdFlower : 8/15-9/15)

In late August 2015, given previous successes in the year, I was tapped to lead the engineering team for delvering a conference-ready AI deliverable by early October.

In the months leading up to that, the CTO had been prototyping an intial verion of the app in Rails which, for the conference, was to supposed to be integrated with other legacy apps (Rails 3.2 and Merb) and have its UI overhauled to be compliant with the newly-created company Styleguide.

Week 1

  • Given Balsamiq wireframes, put together a few layouts
  • Put basic routes in place
  • Began architecting common styling solution between AI app and legacy apps
basics coming together

Week 2

  • Continued work on common styling
  • Made choices aobut JS libs and prototyped interactions given wireframes; got buy-in from CTO, Product, and Design
  • Began work integrating with ML Python web service

first index page of models

Week 3

  • Given higher-resolution mockups by Designer, started to polish look-and-feel
  • With architecture in place, began to parcel work out to other engineers

first version of export

Week 4

  • As conference neared, knew we weren’t going to be able to deliver everything; worked with Product to focus on MVP
  • Oversaw work of other engineers

adding data to the model

Week 5

  • Continued to lead other engineers and refine interactions
annotating a model

Week 6

  • Applied final polish
  • Delivered for the conference! Following are a few screenshots demonstrating some of the deliverables

Results

  • Led team in coordination with CTO to deliver AI application (Rails) for company-sponsored conference on Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science.