About Me – Mika

mika.creates(things);

I am a Canterbury-based programmer, designer, cat mom, and (mediocre) White Mage.

I have several years of professional experience with web application development working with various e-commerce companies in the United States and the United Kingdom, and many more years of experience with making things pretty. When I’m not banging my head against the wall on some “Unexpected Error”, I do graphic design, drawing, bullet journaling, and complain about the 700 other games I’ve never finished because of Final Fantasy XIV.

I have two cats (Kitty and Jess) and a Porxie.

Experience

Frontend Developer
Luceco PLC
Telford, UK
Nov 2022 – Present

– Plays an active role in keeping the brand websites modernised
– Produces efficient and attractive business enhancing applications (using technologies such as Angular, React, Typescript, & PHP; occasionally dabbling on the backend using .NET)
– Works alongside the marketing department to develop interactive marketing material (Adobe Suite).

Designer & Community Moderator
GPOSERS
Sep 2018 – Present

GPOSERS is an international fan community for the MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV dedicated to in-game photography.

– Designs, layouts, and assists with digital publication for the GPOSERS monthly magazine and for social media using InDesign and Photoshop
– Designed, developed, and maintained the former official GPOSERS website as the web administrator using WordPress and PHP from 2019-2023
– Designed and developed the front-end of the control panel of the post-processing injector (GShade) using Adobe XD for wireframing and .NET/WPF for development.
– Assists with onboarding new staff members, proofreading, and quality assurance.
– Moderates the Discord server with the assistance of the DiscordJS API (personalized Discord bots)

Software Engineer
Samarkand Global
London, UK
Sep 2021 – Nov 2022

Developed a centralized e-commerce platform for stock, product, and order management for branded storefronts that are looking to sell their products to China using the MERN stack (React, NextJS, Typescript, Apollo GraphQL, MongoDB).

Junior Software Engineer
Pampered Chef
Addison, IL, USA
Dec 2019 – Mar 2021

Implemented scalable solutions for the public and consultant facing e-commerce web sites, back-end tools, and APIs in the MEAN stack (Angular, Typescript, JQuery, MongoDB) and Java Enterprise (SAP Hybris), following agile development methodologies.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL, USA
Jan 2018 – May 2019

Responsible for tutoring and grading for the Programming Design and Development course (teaching C++, C#, F# and SQL).

Web Application Developer
UIC Student Affairs Technology
Chicago, IL, USA
Aug 2015 – May 2019

Worked as a full-stack web developer for the Student Affairs Technology Department that streamlines work processes for the UIC Campus Housing Department through responsive web-based applications.

Designed, developed, and maintained web-based applications such as budget managers, report generators, forms, and more using PHP, Bootstrap, JavaScript, and Oracle databases.

Worked closely with the Housing Administration on planning, project delivery, and on post-production issues as well.

Education

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL, USA

Programming

Front End Development

80%

Back End Development

70%

Design

Graphic Design

Text 80%

UX Design

Text 75%

Drawing

Text 90%

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