Yelvy Alexa Buitrago
Career History:
At Chewy, I led the development of the Holiday Hub microsite, creating a seamless platform for holiday-related educational content. I designed and built CMS tools in WordPress, empowering content editors to easily update and manage the site. By leveraging WordPress APIs and integrating React for the front-end, along with Next.js for server-side rendering, I ensured optimal SEO performance. I also utilized the company’s custom UI library, built with Storybook, to deliver a consistent and responsive design. In addition to the microsite, I spearheaded a marketing campaign that reached over 4.95 million views, driving significant traffic and conversions for Chewy.
I led performance testing initiatives to ensure our applications could handle varying traffic loads and provide a seamless user experience. I used Gatling to create and execute load testing scenarios that simulated real-world user behavior under different traffic conditions. This approach allowed us to identify potential bottlenecks and optimize the system’s performance. In addition, I utilized FrontLine and DataDog to monitor the system’s performance in real-time, which helped us analyze the results and pinpoint areas for improvement. These efforts were essential in maintaining high performance, even during peak traffic times, ensuring our users experienced minimal delays and smooth interactions.
My work also extended to maintaining legacy front-end services for the beChewy.com blog and contributing to the development of Chewy’s Dog Breed Education Center. This project included fetching API data and creating informative components to grow organic traffic, resulting in a notable increase of 112K sessions in the launch month. I collaborated closely with cross-functional teams, aligning product vision with technical feasibility, and mentored new engineers and interns to ensure successful project delivery.
At Hard Rock, I served as the primary liaison with third-party vendors, ensuring the seamless implementation of front-end code across external platforms. I developed scalable solutions using SASS, Handlebars, and Razor for both internal tools and public-facing web applications. I also led a QA initiative to create a Selenium-based automated UI testing framework in C#, which significantly reduced manual testing efforts and ensured the accurate implementation of third-party client updates. Additionally, I led ADA and SEO compliance efforts, ensuring new features and site enhancements met accessibility and discoverability standards.
I maintained UI integrity across browsers and devices using tools like BrowserStack, ensuring a consistent and responsive user experience. By collaborating with cross-functional teams, I helped craft cohesive user experiences and content strategies based on user behavior and business needs. I engineered efficient CSS, HTML, and JavaScript solutions to optimize content delivery within the Sitecore CMS, improving performance and editorial workflows. I also led the development and communication of email templates using IBM Cloud Silverpop, optimizing performance and ensuring compatibility across major email clients and devices.
At Office Depot, I played a key role in redesigning and modernizing officedepot.com, which serves over 15 million monthly shoppers. Using a combination of JavaScript (ES6+), jQuery, SASS, HTML5, CSS3, and Java (Struts 2, JSP, JSTL), I improved the site’s scalability, performance, and user experience. I implemented modular, reusable UI components to enhance code maintainability and reduce redundancy, while also working closely with backend teams to design efficient RESTful APIs. My collaboration with cross-functional teams, including UX and marketing, ensured seamless, high-performance eCommerce solutions. I also fostered a culture of clean code and peer mentoring through standardized code reviews, and mentored non-technical designers in DOM manipulation and semantic HTML to improve collaboration and code quality. Additionally, I contributed to the design and development of the Ink Cartridge Search application, streamlining product discovery for millions of users.
At CBS Sports, formly known as CBS Sports line, I provided front-end development support to Java engineers, bridging backend functionality with user interface needs. I engineered dynamic page generation and optimized data storage using Perl and XML, improving performance and content delivery. I led the front-end development of the 2004 UI redesign for PGATOUR.com and VegasInsider.com, creating scalable, user-friendly interfaces. Additionally, I maintained UI consistency across the SportsLine.com network, ensuring a cohesive user experience across sites like CBS.SportsLine.com, NFL.com, PGATOUR.com, and NCAASports.com.