Joshua De Lange

Gaia Ecology is an ecology consultancy service that uses a smart combination of software and hundreds of fieldworkers to efficiently execute ecological research, unblocking construction projects throughout the Netherlands.

I have been able to take the proven MVP and rebuild critical parts of the platform to improve UX and reliability. I enjoy working on the challenges that complex planning and map views bring, and make it a delightful experience for the end user.

Excited about the growing Green Tech sector, I joined ESG software company Salacia Solutions when it was a start up and helped it grow to a scale up with about 40 employees. As a tech lead, I was primary responsible for the rapidly growing front-end code base. When I joined I consolidated various front-end prototypes and MVPs into a streamlined React/Remix app and significantly increased performance. I was able to maintain code quality by introducing end-to-end testing, nurturing a culture of solid yet efficient code reviews and enforcing consistent code patterns. I highly value technical mentoring of my co-workers and besides one-on-one sessions I gave several workshops to increase the team s knowledge level.

Global App Nav/UX Overhaul

I identified that our global app navigation/UX was not going to handle the quickly growing functionality and led the process to develop the global user journey. I kept stakeholders on board and designed the new UX flows. I then oversaw the integration of the new navigation while supporting the current one before transitioning our users and removing the old code. This helped the platform continue to grow without compromising user friendliness.

Product owner and design roles

Due to the small size of the company, I took on additional roles as a product owner and designer. I oversaw the software team s backlog and was heavily involved with refinement and planning of sprints. I helped stakeholders with formulating their requirements, then sketched out UX in Figma and often created the first high fidelity design iteration before handing it off to a junior designer.

By leading teams up to 15 people with mixed software, sustainability and EU law expertise, I was able to deliver complex modules within very narrow time frames.

I joined front-end agency De Voorhoede because of their focus on social and environmental impact, reflected in their status as a B-Corp. I had the chance to collaborate on a wide variety of projects and tech stacks. Accessibility and performance are held in high regard at De Voorhoede, and I ve learned to better integrate these throughout my work.

Using open web technology to evade press censorship

For a news website in a country without freedom of press we built technology to evade censorship from their government. The solution is based on the Javascript Service Workers API, static site generation and a continuous deployment setup to a list of mirrors.

Javascript Service Workers Eleventy NPM package