wesruv

Wes Ruvalcaba Roov-al-cah-bah

Employment

  1. Developer - Present
    Giant Rabbit

    • Full stack engineer at Giant Rabbit, a non-profit focused agency on a wide array of tech stacks, budgets, and client needs
    • Redesigned and rebuilt Oregon Law Help's Guided Help tool
      • Worked with the client to identify their goals, concerns, and the shortcomings they identified about the previous version of the app
      • Identifying and fixing serious issues with accessibility, form design, and the "vibe coded" Vue.js
    • Built Environmental Grantmakers website on Drupal 10 and CiviCRM; including the theme, custom modules, and improving editorial workflow
    • The company's user experience, design, front-end, and accessibility SME
    • Helped build and launch many low budget Wordpress web sites

  2. Principal Software Engineer -
    Red Hat

    • Pitched and led a project to reskin our documentation experience, which led to a 30 point NPS score increase from -17.5 to +14.6 over two quarters
    • Created and maintained shared projects, including:
      • Internal web components including site navigation component used on all sites
      • Drupal 9+ Admin Theme used on most major sites

  3. Senior Front-end Developer -
    Red Hat

    • Created a navigation web component that is used on all Red Hat web sites that enforces branding, accessibility, analytics, and consistent functionality across all web properties
    • Responsible for the support, documentation, training, and communication of the shared navigation
    • Eliminated backlogs of technical debt in code, build proccesses, and tooling
    • Overhauled outdated on-boarding, system architecture, best practices, and other documentation and training materials
    • Served as a front-end SME on multiple projects, including documentation, site search, and others

  4. Senior Front-end Developer -
    Lullabot

    • Lead front-end development of large-scale web projects, including: Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science (CMU SCS), AIChE.org, and SpaceX.com
    • Scoped, scheduled and managed ongoing project work across 17 websites for CMU SCS, working directly with the client
    • Consulted with clients regarding best practices for content strategy, as well as architecting front- and back-end functionality
    • Led analytics efforts, including goal setting, test creation, and reporting for Lullabot and many clients
    • Led build and redesign of multiple CMU SCS websites

  6. Front-end Developer -
    Lullabot

    • Front-end development of large scale websites, including BravoTV.com, Oxygen.com, and SpaceX.com
    • Led front-end rebuild of Oxygen.com

  7. Lead Web Designer -
    Highlights for Children

    • Led UX, UI design, front-end development, and content data structure standards and direction for Highlights and its subsidiaries
    • Led major web projects and initiatives, including 2 rebuilds/redesigns
    • Trained team on technologies and processes (Drupal API, Vagrant, Git, Linux CLI)
    • Helped analytics efforts, including goal setting, test creation, and reporting for internal sites as well as many client websites

  8. Manager of Marketing Web Services -
    Highlights for Children

    • Managed team of 3 developers, 2 designers and 2 email specialists, our team was responsible for all Highlights websites and 2 subsidiaries
    • Worked with UX firm to create plan to combine 5 Highlights web properties
    • Directed major redesign and migration for Highlights.com, combining five Highlights web properties into a single site
    • Created & led web content management (WCM) strategy for the websites, including:
      • HUB Project (internal web content syndication and authoring)
      • Single Sign On
    • Created business requirements and wireframes for all large projects
    • Increased team productivity by developing processes, standards & documentation

  9. Web Designer & Developer -
    Highlights for Children

    • Lead designer & front-end developer for the Highlights web team
    • Managed large projects including a redesign of Highlights.com and 3 other sites
    • Authored documentation for the content management system (CMS), front-end development processes, and web style guidelines
    • Improved revenue, conversion rate and click-through rate all 3 years, with targeted and tested design and development changes

Awards, Public Speaking, and Volunteer Work

  1. Top 150 Premier Technical Contributors

    Red Hat
    Along with an invitation to IBM Tech 2023

  2. Speaking & Training -

    • Drupal Govcon Keynote Speaker 2025
    • Authored and presented full day Intermediate/Advanced CSS training at 6+ events across the US for 110+ attendees
    • Presented sessions at DrupalCon North America (Los Angeles, Baltimore, Nashville, & Seattle) and DrupalCon Europe (Vienna)
    • Given talks at 10+ events in the US and Europe

  3. Open Source Volunteering & Contribution

    • BackdropCMS

      • Designed and was lead developer of Basis, the default theme that replaced Bartik from Drupal 7 in Backdrop
      • Gave multiple talks and wrote an article on the design philosophy and how to use and extend Basis

    • Backdrop Project Management Committee -

      • Help manage direction and major decisions for BackdropCMS
      • Contributed 3 major projects to the core project and authored multiple FOSS extensions

Education

  1. Bachelor of Fine Arts - Illustration
    Columbus College of Art and Design