# James Laff

> Software Engineer

Location: New York, New York, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/jameslaff

Software engineer with an analytical background and extensive leadership experience. Builds open source tools for developers and products that nurture communities. Currently works with JavaScript/TypeScript | Node | React | Redux | SQL | Svelte/SvelteKit.

Lead developer for Svend3r, an open source plug and play D3 charting library for Svelte.

Recently spoke on Database Modeling at SingleSprout Speaker Series.

Find me on GitHub at github.com/jameslaff

## Work Experience
### Software Engineer @ Codesmith
Jan 2022 – Present | New York, New York, United States
Developed and maintained internal tools, public site, and JavaScript learning platform with over 165,000 annual users
Debugged JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and npm dependency issues to improve developer experience for ~100 engineers
Wrote documentation to institutionalize trunk-based development for git to increase organizational performance
Performed comprehensive code reviews and walk-throughs in JavaScript, React, Redux, Node.js, Express, SQL, MongoDB, TDD, and DevOps (Docker, AWS, CI/CD) to promote technical development and adherence to engineering best practices
Onboarded and mentored engineering teams through complete Software Development Life Cycles (SDLC), emphasizing Agile methodology and positive team dynamics to ensure successful, on-schedule product launches
Conducted technical interviews of prospective engineers to assess JavaScript knowledge, technical communication, analytical problem solving, debugging skills, and overall cultural fit

### Software Engineer @ Svend3r Charts
Jan 2022 – Present | New York, New York, United States
Implemented SvelteKit to provide a high-performance framework with blazingly fast HMR using Vite for development and code splitting, prefetching, configurable rendering, and seamless serverless integration for production

Engineered Svelte to formulaically generate component code and construct a single store of reactive properties to be dynamically updated after prefetching the corresponding files but before navigating to the selected chart

Harnessed D3 for robust translation of information from the data space to the pixel space and dissected its DOM manipulation methods to render chart elements conditionally in Svelte components with logic blocks

Dramatically improved accessibility of charts with ARIA labels and hidden tables in accordance with A11y principles

Incorporated TypeScript to enforce static typing to facilitate debugging and reduce runtime errors, improving extensibility

Used Tailwind CSS to facilitate a custom UI with inline styling, employing utility classes to achieve a unique design and guarantee cross-browser compatibility while abstracting away unnecessary complexity, making styles easier to maintain

Integrated Playwright for end-to-end testing, ensuring UX quality with an automated browser and promoting UX consistency through time travel debugging, network traffic emulation, and cross-browser testing in CI/CD

Product developed and maintained under tech accelerator OS Labs

### Link | Event Tracker @ Open Source
Jan 2022 – Present
Introduced React to componentize front-end code to improve UX by reducing re-rendering time with the virtual DOM and keep search/filter/list/map displays in sync and easy to maintain by enforcing unidirectional data flow

Employed Node.js/Express server to fetch and store event data by processing multiple API requests and JWT authentication using routers and the middleware design pattern to promote extensibility in future development

Configured Webpack to transpile ES6/JSX and optimize code by reducing build time and implementing HMR for development and also by reducing load time through caching, minification, and uglification for production

### GitGood | Team task/resource organizer @ Open Source
Jan 2022 – Present
Containerized application with Docker to improve collaboration by unifying development and production ecosystems

### Mr. Market | Portfolio Tracker @ Open Source
Jan 2021 – Present
Deployed Redux to provide dynamic portfolio data to multiple components, efficiently managing state across the application to minimize re-rendering and improve organization by separating state management logic from UI logic

Designed a PostgreSQL database to store authentication and portfolio data and enable real-time calculations based on multiple inner joins and composite constraints while ensuring data validity in case of concurrent entries across users

Utilized React Hook Form to handle user authentication and data submission with comprehensive and efficient validation

### Software Engineer @ CS Engineering
Jan 2022 – Present | New York, New York, United States


## Education
### Bachelor's degree
Amherst College

### Master's degree
University of Southern California


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jameslaff
- GitHub: https://github.com/jameslaff

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Source: https://flows.cv/jameslaff
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/jameslaff/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-13