<MikeSandula />
{/* Software Engineer */}

About

Hello! My name is Mike Sandula. I am a seasoned software engineer with over 8 years of experience crafting high-quality, user-centric websites and web applications with the latest technologies (I started using TypeScript way before it was cool).

I'm a problem-solver (I still do my daily Wordle) with a proven track record of figuring things out. I love instilling best practices across engineering teams and working alongside product and design teams to ensure the best possible product.

Prior to entering the tech industry, I worked as a copy editor for several newspapers throughout Southeast Michigan, so identifying bugs and maintaining clean code is second-nature to me.

When I'm away from the keyboard, I can typically be found behind a drum set or a book, or beside my wife, our daughter, and our cat.

👋 Interested in working together or debating JavaScript vs. TypeScript (or, if you're a fellow drummer, Zildjian vs. Sabian)? Drop me a line at msandula@gmail.com.

Projects

Code
Preview
<Project
name="PhotoSphere"
tech={[
"Next.js",
"TypeScript",
"TailwindCSS",
"shadcn/ui",
"Zustand",
"Drizzle",
"PostgreSQL",
"Clerk"
]}
/>
<Description>
Created for my wife so she can easily upload photos from her iPhone and download them on our Windows PC.
</Description>
</Project>
Created for my wife so she can easily upload photos from her iPhone and download them on our Windows PC.
Code
Preview
<Project
name="FontFinder"
tech={[
"React",
"TypeScript",
"Sass",
"Vite",
"Google Fonts API",
"Open AI API"
]}
/>
<Description>
A micro app for finding Google Fonts via natural language search.
</Description>
</Project>
A micro app for finding Google Fonts via natural language search.
Code
Preview
<Project
name="MikeSandula.dev"
tech={[
"React",
"Gatsby",
"Sass",
"React Spring"
]}
/>
<Description>
My personal website aka the site you're on right now.
</Description>
</Project>
My personal website aka the site you're on right now.

Resume

<Resume>
<MikeSandula title="Software Engineer" />
<Location location="Shelby Township, MI, 48315" />
<Contact email="msandula@gmail.com" />
<GitHub userName="msandula12" />
<LinkedIn userName="MikeSandula" />
<Skills
category="Software languages, frameworks, tools"
skills={[
"Angular",
"Ariakit",
"CSS/Less/Sass/CSS-in-JS",
"Cypress",
"Emotion (CSS-in-JS)",
"ESLint",
"Express.js",
"Git",
"GraphQL",
"HTML",
"JavaScript",
"Jest",
"Material UI",
"Next.js",
"Node.js",
"NPM",
"Prettier",
"Python (Dash/Flask)",
"React Testing Library",
"React.js",
"Redux",
"RESTful APIs",
"Storybook",
"Tailwind CSS",
"TypeScript",
"Vue.js",
"Webpack",
"WebSockets",
"Yarn"
]}
/>
<Skills
category="Applications"
skills={[
"Adobe XD",
"AWS",
"Confluence",
"Fastly CDN",
"Figma",
"GitHub/GitLab",
"Jira",
"Semaphore"
]}
/>
<Skills
category="Practices"
skills={[
"Agile/Scrum",
"ARIA/Web Accessibility",
"Code Reviews",
"Frontend Testing",
"Search Engine Optimization (SEO)"
]}
/>
<Section type="Experience">
<Job
company="Dictionary.com"
location="Oakland, CA (remote)"
>
<Role
isCurrent
title="Staff Software Engineer"
startDate="April 2023"
>
<Description>
Lead engineer for redesign of Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com websites, serving 40 million daily users
</Description>
<Description>
Developed in-house design system in tandem with design team using Figma, Ariakit, and Style Dictionary
</Description>
<Description>
Converted 5+ RESTful API calls into a single Apollo GraphQL query that retrieved only the necessary data for populating Dictionary and Thesaurus browse pages
</Description>
<Description>
Implemented Storyblok’s Headless CMS to populate shared data modules, enhancing content creation and scheduling efficiency for the content team
</Description>
<Description>
Formulated a design patterns document to establish best coding practices across engineering teams
</Description>
</Role>
<Role
title="Senior Software Engineer"
startDate="August 2021"
endDate="April 2023"
>
<Description>
Optimized UX of Grammar Coach editor by integrating WebSockets and implementing sentence diffing, which reduced the average payload size by 90 percent and decreased API latency by 75 percent
</Description>
<Description>
Refactored Grammar Coach’s Next.js codebase (100+ components) to TypeScript, introduced Redux Toolkit, and significantly expanded end-to-end testing coverage with Cypress
</Description>
<Description>
Collaborated with product, design, backend, and machine learning teams in an agile environment
</Description>
</Role>
</Job>
<Job
company="Great Lakes Consulting Services, Inc."
location="Livonia, MI (hybrid)"
>
<Role
title="Software Developer"
startDate="January 2019"
endDate="July 2021"
>
<Description>
Developed and managed a React with Redux and TypeScript frontend of an end-to-end budget forecasting application with millions of hospital records for Trinity Health’s budget team
</Description>
<Description>
Designed a multi-page dashboard application with interactive charts and graphs with Dash/Flask (Python)
</Description>
<Description>
Contributed to the recruitment and mentoring of junior engineers and interns, facilitating their seamless onboarding and training processes
</Description>
</Role>
</Job>
<Job
company="Logicdrop"
location="Ferndale, MI (hybrid)"
>
<Role
title="Software Developer"
startDate="April 2016"
endDate="December 2018"
>
<Description>
Launched multiple websites and web apps for various clients using cutting-edge frontend frameworks such as Angular 2+, React and Vue
</Description>
<Description>
Led frontend development for Logicdrop’s Studio Platform, a tool for enterprise-level document automation with a drag-and-drop template editor comprised of over 20 custom elements
</Description>
<Description>
Utilized RxJS observables to provide real-time progress updates to users uploading large documents
</Description>
<Description>
Implemented robust functionality for importing Excel spreadsheets and .CSV files into editable data tables
</Description>
</Role>
</Job>
</Section>
<Section type="Education">
<Education
place="Grand Circus"
location="Detrot, MI"
graduated="March 2016"
>
<Description>
JavaScript Developer Bootcamp
</Description>
</Education>
<Education
place="Oakland University"
location="Rochester, MI"
graduated="December 2010"
>
<Description>
Bachelor of Arts in Journalism (Cum Laude with departmental honors)
</Description>
</Education>
</Section>
<Section type="Certifications">
<Certification
from="Amazon Web Services"
obtained="February 2024"
>
<Description>
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02)
</Description>
</Certification>
</Section>
</Resume>