Tailwind Application - Design Engineer.

In the spirit of Tailwind reducing the amount of code you write for tens of millions, I'll aim to keep this short and sweet as well.

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So... who in the world is this Sam guy?

Greetings Adam, Steve, Robin, and the rest of the Tailwind team! I'm Sam, a software engineer from the Bay Area. I've been designing for the web for nearly a decade, looking for the next step on my journey. The biggest understatement I could make would be calling myself a fan of Tailwind's work. Knowing that there are a tremendous set of very talented folks eager to join your mission, worst case scenario lets at least grab a coffee sometime if you're ever nearby!

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Nice to meet you Sam! What do you think of Tailwind?

When the pandemic hit and all our favorite gyms closed up, I had the totally original idea to get into biking. At one point I got pretty stuck between two choices, and asked a friend for some advice since she's sold and fixed bikes for over a decade. My two choices were the same bike, but one was more expensive yet was painted in a color that just spoke to me. She said: "The best bike is the one you actually ride. If you look at your bike in the morning, and it makes you want to go out and ride, then that's the one you should get. Even if you have the nicest bike money could buy, if you thought it was ugly, you'd forget about it in a week."

The sentiment stuck with me, and could not be more true. Humans love things that are beautiful, it's as simple as that. Tailwind does not just make things easy, or consistent, it doesn't just reduce your CSS down to a third, or even grind the gears of Twitter trolls, it physically makes me want to plug in my keyboard, and build, build, build.

I remember watching the Tailwind Connect 2023 Keynote and out loud saying "Yes! Exactly!" to my phone more times than I could count. Throughout my years of teaching computer science, I've always passionately pushed my students towards the utility-first approach and yet was never able to put it into words as well as Adam did. The idea of building a toolkit to work as a catalyst for creativity genuinely reminded me of the early days of the web, where we were all just figuring things out as we went along.

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Okay that's cool and all, but what about the job?

Oh, right! Well, as I was playing around with Catalyst in early January, sadly, it seemed to be missing quite a few components! Likewise, some parts of TailwindUI lack dark theme support, consistency between pages, or even the modularity that Catalyst has spoiled me with. I decided why not build it myself, and so I did! I joked with my friends at the time, "Man, if only they were hiring, I would love to help them just get this done. Maybe I should get a Tailwind tattoo to stand out...". Low and behold, a few months later, here we are!

Any notable projects you are proud of?

Every day I look for opportunities to make things better without asking permission. Because of this, there are more than a few projects I'm proud of, but here are a few that I think you might enjoy:

  1. TCS Tracker Ultra - My first project using Tailwind. Back when I was teaching at theCoderSchool, we had a tool for tracking student progress called TCS Tracker. Simply enough, it was a dashboard where instructors could write progress reports for students after each session. It was slow, buggy, and ugly. The manager didn't want to bother with a reimplementation, so I couldn't resist doing it myself.

Here is the original for reference (names have been changed for privacy):

tcstrackeroriginal

And here is the new and improved TCS Tracker Ultra:

tcstrackerultra

What's different? For starters, I added a dark mode, because why not? I also added a search bar, a filter for instructors, and a way to view the progress of multiple students at once. I set it up as a drop in replacement where any of my coworkers could log in securely with their existing credentials, and immetiately see their students. It also does some clever prompting with ChatGPT's API to autofill progress reports at the end of each session. This alone cut down admin work time by 90% for myself and my team.

htpartpicker

  1. Home Theater Part Picker - A huge hobby of mine is DIY home theater. Just like any Reddit enthusiast rabbit hole you can find, there is an uneblievable amount of depth and knowledge needed to get started. I remember building my first computer when I was 12, and how easy it was because of pcpartpicker.

    It doesn't make sense why Home Theater enthusiasts should gatekeep the everyday person from the field, so I decided to build a tool that would help people get in the right direction. Then I thought, while I'm at it, let's have some fun and play with "bleeding edge" tech. So far, HTPartPicker has been my excuse to use Catalyst (beta), Vercel AI SDK 3.0, edge compute, and all of the other cool toys going around.

virtualstaging

  1. VirtualStaging.art - Outside of solving problems, or fun hobby projects, I've worked with many clients as well of course. My software agency, Firewave (aka me but with a cool LLC to be more official!), led the development of an innovative, AI-powered real estate staging platform that allows realtors and professionals to virtually stage unfurnished rooms in seconds, providing a cost-effective solution for their clients.

    Outside of teaching over a hundred individual students, I've spearheaded the development of high-profile, enterprise-grade web applications by directly liaising with clients, understanding their needs, and translating technical requirements into well-scoped deliverables. After the project was finished, over the succeeding months, I continued to polish, refine, and test at no extra cost to the client. It's not just about going the extra mile, it's about knowing you are doing great work.

What do you think you could bring to the team?

I have a passion for teaching, and an even stronger one to learn. One thing I'm grateful for from my time working with kids, is how creative they can get when solving problems. Even when throwing a classic like FizzBuzz or TwoSum at a third grader, I would never fail to be surprised by their approach. I have a deep belief that everyone, regardless of experience, is worth learning from.

  1. Another set of human eyes. When I volunteered as an honorary judge for Viking Hacks, my task was to walk around and help students debug their projects. My superpower is taking one look, and going "yep, here's your issue my friend".
  2. The ability to explain clearly and effectively. The old saying goes "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."
  3. A computer science background that extends beyond the scope of web development. In college I graduated with a degree in computer science, coupled with an advanced C++ certification. Although I currently call the land of JavaScript my home, I'm no stranger to traditional languages and paradigms.
  4. I've worked in, played in, and taught in, Python, C#, D3.js, C++, Go, and a teeeeny bit of Java (I'm sorry). Funny enough, the one language I haven't gotten to yet is Rust, but I'm confident that with your team, getting up to speed would just be a fun weekend!
  5. Great taste in music.

Have you seen the job posting?

Yes! The design engineer role is exactly what I've been looking for. Let's take a look at upcoming projects:

  1. Create a tool for designing color palettes:
    • I'm currently working on a tool to design home theaters with Catalyst UI kit. I'd love to share my progress with you! This sounds like a lovely challenge.
  2. Design and build a command palette component for Catalyst
    • Consider it done.
  3. Create documentation demos for 3D transform utilities
    • There is nothing I enjoy more than creating documentation and demos. I call dibs! No take-backsies!
  4. Explore new color palettes with automatic dark mode support
    • Already on it! Rewrote a few TailwindUI components to support dark mode, and I'm loving the results.
  5. Collaborate on expanding the Tailwind CSS documentation

    • I've read every single sneaky little line of the TailwindUI templates, in fact, here are some of my favorites:

      "Despite frequent complaints about missile strikes and power outages, the Ukrainians delivered the brief ahead of schedule." - Studio template

      "It's more than just an image with a border radius, I promise." - Avatar page on Catalyst

      "This is the fourth email I’ve sent to your support team. I am literally being held in jail for tax fraud. Please answer your damn emails, this is important." - This one is actually a real review, you might want to look into that one.

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Alright Sam, you've got our attention. What's next?

I know I promised to keep things simple, so if you read this far, feel free to request access to my resume and check out my projects! Thank you for taking a look, and I hope to hear from you soon!

P.S. I'm still considering that tattoo...