Mike West

Current

• Senior Web Developer at Sueddeutsche Zeitung

Past

• Web Developer at Yahoo!
• Managing Editor at Digital Web Magazine
• Application Engineer at RightNow

• Web Programmer at Dallas Airmotive

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Education

• Universität Stuttgart
• The University of Texas at Austin

Recommended

12 people have recommended Mike

Connections

118 connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

• My Blog
• GitHub Projects

Mike West’s Summary

The foundation of any page or application is well formed, semantic HTML, styled with clearly structured CSS. I write HTML documents carefully, adhering to standards as strictly as is reasonable while remaining flexible in the face of browser inconsistencies. I have an opinion about the semantic meaning of elements, and do my best to ensure that the content I mark up is correctly represented.

JavaScript has also become a critical part of any web application's UI. I've published a number of articles regarding its use for publications such as Digital Web, A List Apart, and Opera’s Web Standards Curriculum. I believe strongly that the pages and applications I produce ought be accessible, meaning (among other things) that core functionality must be available to all. Whenever possible, the JavaScript I write enhances unobtrusively while degrading gracefully.

My core competency lies in the elegant combination of these three frontend languages to create delightful user experiences, and the design and construction of a backend delivery system to ensure that as many people as possible see the results.

Mike West’s Specialties:

JavaScript, CSS, HTML, AJAX, PHP, Python ARIA, UI, Perl, OO, SQL, XML, Accessibility, Localization (l10n), Internationalization (i18n), and other exciting buzzwords.

Mike West’s Experience

• Senior Web Developer

  Sueddeutsche Zeitung

  (Privately Held; Newspapers industry)

  January 2009 — Present (1 year )

  Together with my team, I'm responsible for the channel through which some 25 million monthly visitors obtain Süddeutsche’s unique blend of news and opinion. In close cooperation with designers and journalists, I turn raw layouts and hastily-specified requests into polished implementations. At SDE, my primary focus is front-end work; HTML, CSS, and JavaScript run through me before they go live, and I have a hand in the architecture and build-out of the site's PHP- based rendering engine.

• Web Developer

  Yahoo!

  (Public Company; YHOO; Internet industry)

  November 2006 — December 2008 (2 years 2 months)

  In 2006 I helped build the current iteration of Yahoo! News in the European market. I worked closely with the engineering, user experience, and product groups to construct a frontend framework that simultaneously supports users in five languages in five markets, and serves well over ten million hits daily without breaking a sweat. Through the latter half of 2007 and first half of 2008, I was the sole web developer on the project, responsible for frontend maintenance from top to bottom.

• Managing Editor

  Digital Web Magazine

  (Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

  July 2006 — December 2006 (6 months)

• Application Engineer

  RightNow

  (Public Company; RNOW; Computer Software industry)

  March 2005 — January 2006 (11 months)

  I worked directly with clients to customize RightNow's complete CRM solution to meet their needs and to integrate it into pre-existing backend systems. My role ranged from small tweaks to the software's UI, up to sweeping rewrites that created completely new functionality. Both on- and off-site, I served clients like Motorola, Orbitz, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and was responsible both for scoping each project and implementing the scoped changes.

• Web Programmer

  Dallas Airmotive

  (Public Company; Airlines/Aviation industry)

  August 2003 — March 2005 (1 year 8 months)

  I helped design and implement Turbine Update: a suite of applications responsible for internal ticket tracking for IT and maintenance departments, and for a client-facing system allowing customers to track their engines' repair status. It's a large PHP-based system that touches every department in the company, and interfaces with SAP.

Mike West’s Education

• Universität Stuttgart

  German 2006 — 2006

  German language courses.

• The University of Texas at Austin

  B.A. , Philosophy , 1998 — 2003

Additional Information

Mike West’s Websites:

• My Blog
• GitHub Projects

Mike West’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• reference requests
• getting back in touch