Consulting

Accessibility

Getting a project compliant to any of the WCAG standards can be a bit daunting if you haven't done it before. You'll probably start with automated scans and similar tools. An understandable place to start, easy and a good return vs. effort. However, since passing a scan is the easy part, you'll quickly graduate to the harder parts. People using screen readers and keyboards hit problems that scans don't flag, and websites and single-page apps are full of them. Eventually you'll be on the path to a full audit. Or maybe you have an audit on the calendar, or just got results back from one. Most of these latter scenarios are where I can really shine for a client.

I'll audit against WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 AA (or whichever WCAG compliance level makes sense), fix what turns up or work alongside your team while they do and stay through the auditor's review. I've done this for numerous enterprise builds. If you want it to stick, I'll also train your developers and put checks into CI so the next release doesn't quietly undo the work. Further still, I can train your designers and product team to extend checks into their workflows and prevent even more problems from ever showing up at all.

Frontend architecture and design systems

Architecture decisions are cheap before a team builds on them and expensive after. I'll help you make them early: framework and rendering approach, component structure, state, how the frontend talks to the backend, team conventions, and more. Then I document it so people can follow it. If you're starting something and want the structural decisions made carefully before the team scales onto them, that's this.

If you have a design system, or need one, I've setup everything from a very basic utilization of open source systems (like Material Design, Foundation or Tailwind), to fully customized systems built by cross-functional questionaires and workshops across product, design and engineering; documented and planned. Beyond this I've also done the perhaps even more difficult task of implementation and deployment to outside teams.

Product engineering for early-stage teams

Early teams often don't need a specialist per layer. They need someone who can build a feature end to end and make reasonable calls when the spec runs out. I've done this for start-ups, agencies, and large enterprises alike. Additionally with AI, more people are trying out fast and dirty prototyping. You may see fast results but equally quickly hit a wall when your ability to follow up the AI hits a lack of experience deploying real projects. I can help.

Rough requirements are fine in these scenarios. In fact, in most early-stage situations, I'd prefer to be around when product decisions are still being made to make revisions more quick and effective.

Engineering practice and delivery setup

If your team is inheriting a codebase, shipping slowly, or just looking to optimize, this is where I jump in.

I've moved development in-house from an outside vendor, set the coding standards and onboarding documentation that a new team ran on, and built CI/CD pipelines with automated testing and coverage reporting. I've managed distributed teams across countries and timezones while continuing to write code.

Enterprise CMS integration

Large CMS systems are a bit of a double edged sword. They both solve and create a lot of problems. I've built and integrated custom frontends against multiple large enterprise CMS' as well as bridged occasional API and backend issues. Wrangling these systems to optimize for not only what they do well, but how to best fit your workflow is a project so many have faced. If you're facing this I can help.

I'm sold. Help me!

I start most projects with a short conversation about about what you're building, the issues you're facing, and how you think I can help. From there I'll propose a scope of work appropriate to your project: a fixed-scope audit or architecture review, a project-based build, ongoing hours if you need someone available week to week. Whatever is best suitied to your needs and budget.

Email me at main@mattirwin.codes or reach me on LinkedIn.