evan jacobs

Thanks for checking out my site!

I've been writing code professionally since 2009 (self-taught) and maintain a number of high-profile npm libraries like styled-components and markdown-to-jsx. I've had the privilege to work at many great startups over the years and wield that knowledge every day in my software consultancy.

FTE lineage: Digitas (2013), BEAM (2013-14), Yahoo! (2014-15), Enigma (2015-17), Zocdoc (2017-18), Sesame (2018-19), ButcherBox (2020-21), Aurora Solar (2021-25), Consulting (2025-present).

These days I really enjoy helping new businesses get off the ground, from building the product to building the team. I sweat the details: documentation is a day-one asset, high-automation for CI, a self-reinforcing and metacognitively-optimized agentic harness for safe high throughput, and vision to help you see around corners.

projects

Stealth

2026-current

Active engagement with a stealth client. Details under wraps for now.

AthenateAthenate logo

2025-2026

Facility intelligence platform helping school districts get clear, current insight into the state of their campuses and spending. Built in partnership with a sister architecture firm with deep public-education experience; tracks construction projects from budget through delivery.

Cyan BanisterCyan Banister logo

2025-present

Log onto Cyan's terminal and get to her know her! A lot of love went into this one, including: a full shop integration, contact form with LLM character filters, many interactive experiences, a bespoke SVG generation pipeline based on finetuned SDXL via Replicate, and much more. Can you find all the easter eggs?

prior roles

Aurora SolarAurora Solar logo

Principal Software Engineer8/2021 - 1/2025 (RIF)

Architected and executed a design system and high-automation localization platform for 12+ engineering pods. Saved the company $200k annually on compute costs related to CI/CD. Last aided with monorepo modernization and cycle time improvement.

  • Concepted and executed the tooling for the company's engineering localization strategy leveraging the CrowdIn TMS, DeepL translation engine, and a lightweight internal library leveraging web platform primitives like Intl
  • Migrated an expensive and complex self-hosted GitHub Actions runner stack to use ARM architecture, resulting in a 40% reduction in overall cost; refactored all workflows for additional performance benefit, cost saving, and consistent stability
  • Built all components, patterns, and technical writings listed on ds.auslr.io
  • Shaped UX processes on the design team and regularly engage in designer-requested review and feasibility sessions of upcoming work across the organization
  • Maintenance assistance for relevant open source libraries, like: formik, styled-components, xstyled
  • Education and mentorship of other engineers through pairing, educational videos, office hours, etc

ButcherBoxButcherBox logo

Software Architect3/2020 - 1/2021

Architected and implemented a brand new e-commerce frontend for the company, including: a design system, full browser testing suite, and robust telemetry schema for our data scientists.

  • Co-developed data contracts with the backend team to enable a new set of APIs with consistent payloads and behaviors (RESTful pattern using OpenAPI standard)
  • Advocated-for and implemented several important runtime tools like Sentry and LogRocket to be able to quickly identify and resolve user-facing bugs that would normally be difficult to reproduce
  • Mentored several engineers (all experience levels) over the course of my tenure
  • Developed expertise with TypeScript

SesameSesame logo

Front End Architect8/2018 - 10/2019

Working in tandem with a backend engineering team in Berlin, I architected and executed a constellation of web app experiences to support a two-sided health marketplace. As a senior member of the team, I was present during the entire product development process and bridged product, design, and backend engineering.

  • Designed and implemented four next.js-backed React web apps focusing on different aspects of the marketplace with diverse browser support requirements
  • Architected a GraphQL schema for our front end data needs and implemented it using the Apollo stack
  • Advocated for and built out multiple versions of Sesame's design system; with this we were able to push out new experiences in hours instead of days thanks to a reliable, well-tested set of system components

ZocDocZocDoc logo

Front End Architect2/2017 - 6/2018

I architected and implemented a white-label solution that enabled rapid, synchronized deployment of enterprise client web products, derived from a battle-tested, homogenous core used by zocdoc.com itself (custom streaming SSR framework + design system based on React.)

EnigmaEnigma logo

Technical Lead6/2015 - 1/2017

Principal front-end architecture development and implementation of the flagship product: Abstract (now "Enigma Public".) My responsibilities also extended to mentoring of other FE engineers, setting internal company standards for FE engineering, and project estimation.

Yahoo!Yahoo! logo

Software Engineer5/2014 - 5/2015

Lead UI engineer in a team of 30+ front-enders on Yahoo! Mail. Developed a new implementation of search in the Mail product using React. Represented the Mail team in a company-wide redesign initiative.

Merge (Beam Interactive)Merge (Beam Interactive) logo

Senior Software Engineer6/2013 - 5/2014

Lead front-end engineer in a team of six. Wrote the majority of the HTML, CSS and JS (Angular & jQuery) in use on the new MINIUSA.com. Regularly mentored junior and mid-level developers and held info sessions on rising technologies and JS best practices. Built a data visualization tool in Angular and Express to interpret both online and offline marketing data and plot the critical paths customers took to arrive at the company's desired goals.

open source

view stats

I am a frequent contributor to open source projects and maintain a small collection of software libraries in my spare time.