gavyncaldwell

Case studies · 2016 — present

Work

The pattern across a decade and counting: take a frontend (or a team) that's stuck, and rebuild it into one that ships. Three stories with the numbers to back them, and the full trail below.

Koddi · Senior Frontend Developer · 2023 — present

Rebuilding a legacy frontend while the ship kept sailing

The problem

An enterprise advertising analytics platform stuck on Angular 1 — years past end-of-life, hard to hire for, and slowing every feature down.

The approach

Rebuilt it from the ground up in React, TypeScript, and Vite, with a hybrid architecture that let Angular and React run side by side so the product never stopped shipping. Complex data visualization rebuilt on AG Grid and Highcharts.

The outcome

Then came the second modernization: how the team works. I led AI tooling adoption across engineering — training 8+ developers on Claude and agent workflows, building custom agents, hooks, and skills, and writing dual-purpose documentation that serves both developers and AI assistants.

8+ engineers trained on AI workflowsAngular 1 → React, zero downtime

Ask Hoodie · Senior Frontend Developer · 2022 — 2023

50 to 50,000 daily impressions in six months

The problem

A consumer product that search engines could barely see, with thousands of content items no one could find.

The approach

SSR with Next.js, structured data, and a proper SEO foundation; Algolia search integrated across the full content catalog; test coverage raised by over 50% with Cypress, Jest, and React Testing Library.

The outcome

Daily impressions grew a thousand-fold in six months — from 50 to over 50,000 — on both consumer-facing and white-label applications.

1,000× impression growth+50% test coverage

Quivers · Lead UI Engineer · 2018 — 2022

First Angular rescue, and a team built around it

The problem

A legacy Angular 1 e-commerce application past its limits, and a distributed frontend team of five needing direction.

The approach

Led the ground-up rebuild in React, Redux, and Material UI — my first full legacy-to-modern migration — while building reusable component systems that sped up everything the team shipped after.

The outcome

Multiple e-commerce products delivered on the new foundation, with close collaboration across stakeholders, backend, and design.

Led a team of 5Legacy rebuild #1 of 2

The full trail

  1. 2023 — presentKoddi — Senior Frontend DeveloperEnterprise analytics, legacy modernization, AI tooling adoption
  2. 2022 — 2023Ask Hoodie — Senior Frontend DeveloperNext.js, SEO/SSR, Algolia search
  3. 2018 — 2022Quivers — Lead UI EngineerLed 5-person frontend team, e-commerce products
  4. 2018Clearlink — Frontend DeveloperHigh-converting SEO/PPC landing pages for Verizon
  5. 2016 — 2017Nav — Associate Software EngineerFintech web apps with React, Redux, Node.js