I am Gemma, a senior full-stack software engineer with 12 years experience who has helped teams develop products and software quickly, laying the groundwork that resulted in 20+ services deployed to production @ Kamma in 6 years, and led the delivery of features and releases to over 30+ live in-person event websites with a team of 3 @ WTG within 3 years.
My goal isn't just to produce software, but to:
- Help teams achieve optimal product velocity by improving the developer experience.
- Build products that customers need and are easy to use.
- Increase internal productivity through collaboration, and building/sourcing tools.
I love working with different languages, frameworks and tools across the entire stack including:
What am I up to?
- I recently designed and built version 1 of Uposcar, a simple free profit/loss calculator for those using the FIFO accounting method.
- I'm currently working on Melimundo, a visa application assistant for UK citizens looking to live and work in Spain as digital nomads.
- I'm currently deep-diving into Bun.
- I'm looking forward to either learning Solidity or Rust.
Writing Highlights
- 🔥📈 My most engaged article: “16 Principles for Tech-led Start-ups as a Software Engineer” on Dev.to.
- ⚡💬 My most controversial article: “NodeJS: 4.8x Faster if You go Back to Callbacks!” on Hackernoon.
- ⏱️🔍My fastest syndicated article: “NodeJS: We can run tests natively!” for “Software Testing Weekly #207”.
Ping me a message on Twitter @GemmaBlackUK.
Outside of work
uposcar.com - A frameworkless, free FIFO profit and loss calculator.
melimundo.com – A free Digital Nomad Visa applications assistance for UK expats moving to Spain.
If you're still reading my profile, I've somewhat managed to come across as remotely interesting.
- I use Plain Text Accounting for simplicity. Kudos to hledger.
- 🇪🇸 I decided to move to the heart of Spain where no one speaks English. I can attest that my Spanish is improving.
- 🔨 I'm renovating some beech-wood chairs that I was given for free.
- 🎹 I love making music on my phone and once upon a time released loops to practice my production skills @ Roxxibox Loop.
- 👩🏽💻 I created a Tailwind analog called Preons before I knew it existed, after realizing how useful functional CSS was and needing more flexibility than what Tachyons provided.