Conectar is an e-learning platform that connects people looking to learn English to professional native English speakers. We had to bring the entire classroom experience to the web and make it feel as immersive as possible.
To achieve that, we needed to build multiple apps into the system like comms (video, audio, messagging), a scheduling system (for appointments) etc so I joined the company as a Frontend Engineer to build these products.
User experience was quite critical for a learning platform so I got a professional to whip up a new identity and mockups, drafted a proposal, based on that I built the design system and a brand new marketing site following those guidelines.
I designed all the UIs on the dashboard integrating REST APIs and built the front-end of major apps from the ground up like the messaging system which was based off of the API from our Rails backend. It was quite challenging integrating all these features while keeping an eye out for performance and usability. There were back-and-forths but eventually it was stable and had a bunch of the core features of Facebook Messenger which was really beautiful.
I also worked with a colleague to build an appointment scheduling system for the product then went ahead to work on the classroom app which had lots of interesting features like a customizable realtime whiteboard built totally from scratch, video and audio comms and other tools to facilitate seamless tutor-student interaction.
The project was huge and housed hundreds of thousands of lines of code powered by multiple technologies like React, Rails, Sass, Redux, Webpacker, GoLang, Java etc and we often had to re-evaluate strategies regarding certain topics like state management, performance and development workflow. I was able to work across different segments from design to DevOps to strategy and implementation.
I was the Lead Frontend engineer so I got to work with other engineers and contractors on various tools. It certainly was a great learning experience. Unfortunately, the product hasn’t made it yet to the real world and I absolutely hope that it does someday.
Design work was done by my friend, Caleb with a little assist from me. He’s absolutely talented and currently available for hire.