Résumé: Paul Souders

Principal, Scrubjay

Scrubjay is a generalist digital workshop. Our current client roster includes:

• Fat Pencil Studio
• United Way of the Columbia-Willamette
• Preschool Marketplace
• Early Learning Multnomah
• Global Solar Council
• Disaster Resilience Learning Network

Across all our projects, I:

• assess business needs
• collect project requirements
• generate estimates
• build project plans
• audit accessibility and usability
• conduct brainstorms
• write content
• migrate data from legacy systems
• edit photography
• design logos
• provision and maintain infrastructure
• connect to third-party services
• design technical architectures
• write and test front- and back-end code
• collaborate with subcontractors and other contributors
• …do anything and everything needed to build a beautiful web property and keep it healthy.

Senior Software Engineer, TolaData (Mercy Corps)

I am a core contributor to TolaData, Mercy Corps’ impact indicator and results tracking application. In 2018, I worked with the User Experience designer to clean up the visual design from a legacy system, and to implement a slew of new features.

• Overhauled the front-end display code to ready it for asynchronous interactivity
• Contribute front-end (React) and back-end (Python/Django) code
• Participate in code reviews
• Lead code refactors
• Mentor junior developers
• Work with the Product Owner and the rest of the engineering team to refine the backlog and plan product releases
• Design the technical architecture for the continued growth of the application, including its APIs and permissions models
• Manage the project’s integration with third-party systems

Design Lead and Engineering Manager, MicroMentor

I led engineering, visual design, and user experience design for MicroMentor, a global platform in five languages connecting small business entrepreneurs with mentors around the world. In 2019, I spearheaded a redesign of the platform, dovetailing with an organizational strategy to own the product in-house from an external vendor.

• Led its migration from a proprietary technology to Django/Wagtail
• Devised our project management and engineering practices
• Managed senior and junior engineers
• Onboarded new engineers into our system
• Led standups, backlog refinement sessions, code reviews, and infrastructure operations
• Worked closely with business owners, community members, and stakeholders to design an experience that served our diverse communities
• Top contributor to the codebase

Freelance web designer, UX designer, developer, and digital strategist

I provided branding, web design, mobile app design, user experience design, email design and development, and web development services to countless (hundreds of?) organizations.

Director of Design, OpenSourcery

I led visual, UI, and UX design for a Drupal web development and software shop, and contributed front-end code. Notable projects included full site redesigns for:

• IQ Credit Union
• United Way of the Columbia-Willamette
• Portland State University College of the Arts
• Princeton (New Jersey) Public Library

I also worked with the accounts team on sales & marketing, closing sales worth more than $200,000 for the projects mentioned above.

Senior Designer, Mercy Corps

I was the sole interactive designer and front-end developer for all of Mercy Corps’ internal and external emails and web properties.

• Designed multiple iterations of the flagship Mercy Corps website, including two redesigns associated with major software migrations
• Designed and developed e-newsletters and fundraising emails
• Created websites for internal and external Mercy Corps projects
• Collaborated with the branding team to maintain consistency across multiple properties
• With the Digital Marketing Director, pioneered the strategy for Personal Fundraising Pages, before this became a widespread industry practice
• Conducted user research and led focus groups to hone our online fundraising strategies; the result was a highly-optimized donation experience, whose pattern has become a fundraising standard.

Senior Usability Designer, ID Branding

I designed and documented the user experience of the Intel Brand Center, a global extranet for distributing and managing creative assets associated with Intel’s major rebrand at that time.

Art Director, Curiosity Group

I led a team of designers producing material for web, email, print, and interactive marketing.

• Led internal marketing projects
• Mentored junior designers
• Collaborated with developers on execution and user experience
• Collaborated with creative directors and client teams on creative direction
• Storyboarded animations
• Managed contract designers, animators, and developers
• Directed photo shoots
• Closed sales conversations, with accounts and sales team
• Guided artistic direction and user experience across multiple properites

Clients included:

• Hewlett-Packard
• Paramount Television
• Oregon Lottery
• MacForce

Web Designer and Web Developer, CyberSight/NineDots

I designed and developed websites for several clients including:

• NW Natural
• Dole Foods
• Quaker Oats
• Northwest Airlines
• Cap’n Crunch

Web Designer and Flash Animator, Headbone Interactive

• Hand-rolled page designs and game prototypes in HTML
• Wrote small CGI games
• Crafted Flash animations
• Drew monkeys, witches, dogs, robots, and various other creatures for kids’ web portals

Clients included:

• Headbone Zone
• Discovery Channel
• Fleet Bank
• General Mills
• CBS Kids

Archaeologist

I practiced archaeology throughout the western United States including Alaska.

Front-end UI development

I trust semantic markup+styles to solve most presentation problems. I have extensive experience designing and developing localized/internationalized systems.

Back-end engineering

I have learned (the hard way?) to keep the front- and back-ends as loosely coupled as possible. I lean on Django’s built-in ORM and API tools.

Front-end engineering

My instinct is to reach for these tools last when adding interactivity…ideally when the back- and front-end architectures can be cleanly separated.

Infrastructure and operations

On those projects where I am the sole resource, I keep this as light and simple as possible, and worry about scale problems when they arise.

Static site generators and CMSes

I have almost 15 years of experience building sites with and for CMSes, with a focus on community and fundraising websites.

Visual and UX design

My visual practice is highly collaborative, a habit I learned as an art director. I take an ethnographic eye and iterative hand to UX design.

Project/product management

I favor minimalist kanban-style praxes. In the best systems, project management artifacts become product documentation.