Bridging the gap between Community, Tech & Business

I’m a former FAANG Staff Engineer combining practical founder experience, Silicon Valley expertise, and years of building community on the web. Whether you’re scaling a startup or starting an ambitious project for social good, I’m passionate about bridging the gap between business, community-building, and engineering—helping teams grow sustainable products by balancing their business and technical goals with those of their users.

Want to work together? I’m currently available on a project-basis at a target rate of $200-300/hr. While I can cover a variety of roles, I’ve been told I’d make an amazing fractional CTO!

Want to work together?

Let’s Chat!

No time for calling? Email me at essential.randomn3ss@gmail.com!

Outside your budget? Let’s barter negotiate!

I strongly believe in win-wins: if your project is aligned to my personal expertise and goals but your budget can’t quite reach my rate, I’m open to finding alternative arrangements that work for us! Contact me and let’s work it out!

At a Glance

Where I Can Help

After a long stint as an individual contributor, I’ve left my stable job to change the face of the web. Since then, I’ve been leading two organizations, lauching multiple Kickstarters, writing books about version control, and programming ambitious projects from new social networks, to Astro-based zine creators, to plugins for (almost) any modern software you can think of! All of this while managing teams of volunteers, multiple communities, and even creating strong brand identities and marketing campaigns.

If any of this sounds something you could use help with, schedule a call!

Project Ownership

Having been on both sides of the table, I understand the challenges of finding reliable partners who can independently own and drive projects forward. Whether as an individual contributor, a team lead, or fractional CTO, I can help you:

End-to-End Technical Leadership

  • Independent project ownership and execution
  • Clear, actionable deliverables
  • Strategic decision-making
  • Regular, meaningful updates

Technical Strategy & Architecture

  • API design validation
  • Stack selection advice
  • Scaling strategy review
  • Make-vs-buy decisions
  • Technical debt assessment

MVP Development Strategy

  • Feature prioritization
  • Risk assessment
  • Resource Allocation
  • Launch planning

Organizational Culture & Practices

  • Code review processes
  • Documentation systems
  • Technical evaluation and hiring
  • Mentoring programs

Technologies I Love

I’m extremely knowledgeable about the TypeScript ecosystem, and I’ve been leading projects using React, NextJS, React Query, Storybook, and Astro for the past 5 years. I love building plugins, and I’ve done so for Storybook, Vite, MDX (UnifiedJS), Astro, Jest, Express, Zod and more. I also love integrating software together, and I’ve done work with PayPal, Stripe, Discord, social sites including Twitter and Tumblr, GitHub (including Actions) and others.

I have experience across the full webdev stack, including both backend (Express, PostreSQL, SQLite, Redis, Drizzle, and others), frontend (including mastery of CSS), and NPM libraries (both utilities and design systems). I love building libraries on NPM and REST APIs.

I have some experience with system administration, including NixOS and NGINX.

I love trying new technologies and working across their boundaries to make them work together. Even if I’m not familiar with what you use, I can catch up to speed quickly.

In my professional career, I’ve also worked with Python, Java, and C++.

Practical Experience

I’ve worn many different hats throughout my career. Here is a selection of relevant work that shows my breadth of skills and experience.

Founder Perspective

I spent my last 4 years building FujoCoded, an independent small-tech company bridging technology, education and fandom. As part of this I:

  • Built and launched multiple real-world project from concept to production, both independently and with a team
  • Managed distributed, contractors and volunteers teams across multiple time zones and expertise levels
  • Successfully raised $27k across two crowdfunding campaigns targeting niche markets
  • Balanced technical decisions with business constraint with uncommon technical and business requirements
  • Developed expertise across key business functions including technical leadership, strategic planning, team development, and stakeholder communications

Big Tech Experience

I spent 10+ years working in FAANG, developing and scaling cross-organizational systems for products used by millions. As part of this I:

  • Made high-scale system architecture decisions producing and reviewing highly technical design documents
  • Developed internal and external infrastructure balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders across multiple functions
  • Created maintainable, well-documented code spanning frontend, backend, and infrastructure development, including large-scale Machine Learning systems
  • …and more!

Technical, Business and Community Leadership

I’ve worked with and mentored a wide variety of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and led communities of all types. As part of this I:

  • Built and mentored remote teams, with an emphasis on growing junior and hobbyists developers, guiding them past time and skills constraints
  • Developed and implemented multiple roadmaps for ambitious projects successfully delivered within a limited timescale and limited resources
  • Founded and managed multiple small communities, including a 300-people technical community covering hobbyists, student, junior and senior developers
  • Currently scaling multiple organizations I founded which include both a technology-focusedy business and a technology-related non-profit initiative
  • Wrote an accessible guide to Git, GitHub and general Version Control for a non-traditional non-technical public

Want to work together?

Schedule a Chat

No time for chatting? Email me at essential.randomn3ss@gmail.com!