Alex Dytrych

• Freelance / Consulting
• Product
• UI/UX Design
• JavaScript
• React.js
• Data Visualisation

Airtable was looking for help developing Blocks - apps embedded in your spreadsheet/database. With only rough direction and customer feedback, I designed, and implemented several Blocks. The Blocks I created are key features for large Airtable clients, such as well known social media and video streaming companies.

I also improved the Blocks SDK itself. I added new features for tighter integration with the rest of Airtable, and made several API UX changes to make things faster and easier for other developers working on the platform.

• Freelance / Consulting
• Education
• JavaScript
• Java
• Games
• Agile

At Ada, The National College for Digital Skills, I've designed and delivered several courses and programs. My recent work has been on the 2-year degree-equivalent Digital Innovation Apprenticeship. The course has seen candidates go from absolute beginners to valued members of their software teams at companies like Google, Facebook, and EY.

I co-led the software engineering modules. My personal focus is in ensuring we emphasize the "soft" skills required to be a successful developer. As a result, students learn faster and more collaboratively, in a highly self-directed environment. I also supported delivery of modules on user-centered design, agile methodologies, data structures, and algorithms.

• Freelance / Consulting
• Product
• UI/UX Design
• Games
• JavaScript
• React.js
• GraphQL
• PostgreSQL

At youth politics charity Bite The Ballot, I designed and built Verto - a playful survey & interactive video platform. With the help of a colleague, I took BTB's team right through the product development process. I facilitated ideation sessions, produced initial prototypes, and tested with some real-world users.

After several design iterations, we built out and launched the platform - testing as we went. My focus was on the technical architecture; UX; and the playful, high-performance frontend. The project has been a huge success - the playful surveys have a very high completion rate beyond our initial expectations. BTB has started to become self-sufficient by offering Verto to comercial businesses.

• JavaScript
• Node.js
• React.js
• Redux
• GraphQL
• PostgreSQL
• Ruby

As a Software Engineer, I helped design, develop, and architect a rewrite of Music Glue's e-commerce system. We replaced a legacy PHP & MySQL monolith with a collection of Node.JS & PostgreSQL services, exposed to clients via a single unified GraphQL API. The new system was orders of magnitude faster and more scalable, with far greater flexibility for our users.

On the client-side, I architected a light-weight, performance-oriented React/Redux shop frontend used on all Music Glue stores. We set a tight performance budget and were able to keep quite comfortably within it. I also created a new theming system that dramatically increased the customization options available to customers.

• Co-Founder
• Product
• UI/UX Design
• JavaScript
• Node.js
• React.js
• PostgreSQL
• MongoDB
• Pixi.js
• AWS

As co-founder & CTO, I was responsible for all the technical work on our product Erase All Kittens, an award-winning game that teaches children how to code. I started the project in my bedroom, and by the time I left, we had introduced hundreds of thousands of children to coding.

I was responsible for the educational content, and much of the mechanics & puzzle design. I created a custom browser-based game engine to support E.A.K.'s core mechanic - the ability to edit the HTML and CSS source code to levels in real time, as you were playing.

• JavaScript
• Node.js
• PHP
• PostgreSQL
• Real-time
• Go
• Angular.js

At Decoded I worked on a range of internal and external software products. Notably, I designed and built the live coding environment Decoded used to deliver all their coding workshops. The web-based editor was designed to have the lowest possible barrier to entry and a very tight feedback loop to help new coders understand the effects of their changes.

Watch on Skills Matter. A short talk on our use of GraphQL at Music Glue. I discussed the decision to make error states an explicit part of our graph schema for extra resilience if a service went down.