Robert Ferguson

Software Engineer

Hello. I build projects for the web. I've worked in all aspects of design and development since 2006, and my focus at the moment is using TypeScript and React to provide accessible and performant user experiences.

About me

I grew up in Southern California and attended Chapman Uiversity where I studied film production. After my undergrad I moved to Savannah, Georgia to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design where I earned my MFA in Interactive Design. After my graduate degree I started off as a web designer, but soon found that engineering suited my personality a lot better. I focus now primarily on front end development and design systems.

My careeer has taken me all over the country. Currently we are in Appleton, Wisconsin. My wife and I have one son and two dogs that keep us busy. We love the Great Lakes region and spend a lot of time outdoors.

If you're curious to dive deeper into my work, you can follow me:

Technologies

Work History

Software Engineer
ZoomInfo
06.2024 - Present

After SetSail was acquired by ZoomInfo I moved over to the team working on the Marketing application. ZoomInfo Marketing is an angular application that provides customers with industry and user intent data in order to better target their online advertising. As a part of that team I worked on full stack features using Angular, NestJS, Node and TypeScript.

Staff Frontend Engineer
SetSail (acquired by ZoomInfo)
05.2022 - 03.2024

As a staff engineer I developed and supported front end features for our react application and browser extension. I also built and managed the new Sail UI react component library to provide an accessible and consistent user experience across all segments of the application.

Staff Software Engineer
Realtor.com
07.2021 - 05.2022

I designed, built and deployed React components and micro frontends for the Realtor Pro Dashboard product. I also developed and deployed GraphQL endpoints to interface with our shared services and assets. I also helped build and manage the new Harmony UI design system for the BACX teams (Broker, Agent, Concierge experiences) written in React and Storybook.

Senior Software Engineer
Arm / Pelion
04.2020 - 07.2021

I joined Arm to improve the front end code and provide consistency in UX for the Pelion suite of applications. I worked on the Pelion ML machine learning application (Python / React), the Pelion Space Analytics application (Node / React) and was the primary contributor to the Pelion Design System (TypeScript). I worked with team members to implement new features using the design system components and helped them improve some of the older features built using bootstrap and other UI libraries.

After the org shift at Arm, I worked on several teams in the newly created Pelion startup, focusing on Python, Node, and React. I managed the developer site in Django, which published guides, code and swagger api documentation for developing with the Connectivity and Device Management products. I also worked on front end features for the IoT Device Management application in React, and prototyped apis and user interfaces for the new Connected Device Platform, which will be the gateway to the existing Pelion products.

Full Stack Software Engineer
Instructure
04.2019 ~ 01.2020

I worked on two different teams while at Instructure. On the Bridge career team I built and tested application features in Kotlin, Spring, Postgres and React. On the MasteryConnect team I refactored front end code for student facing features in React, RxJS and Ruby on Rails

Instructional Web Manager
Austin Community College
09.2017 ~ 04.2019

I worked at ACC for almost 10 years. I started because I wanted to teach web design, and took an additional part time position for the flexibility and health insurance. I found that I liked the education environment so much I took the first full time position available in Instructional Development as a Multimedia Developer. The position was mostly web development using Flash, PHP, HTML, JavaScript and CSS.

A few years later I took on more responsibility as a Web Administrator and the last couple of years I was running my own department called Instructional Web. I helped create the Instructional Web Services department to provide leadership and development for online instructional content. It was a small team of four developers, two designers and two content strategists. I managed design and full stack development (AWS, Php, MySQL, Python, JavaScript) for instructional divisions.

Education

Master of Fine Arts in Interactive Design
Savannah College of Art and Design
2003 - 2006
I studied interactive design at SCAD with a focus on nonlinear storytelling. This was the golden age of Flash and I was able to learn a lot about animation, interactivity, and design. I also studied game design and development a bit, using 3d Studio Max, Maya and the Unreal engine to make some simple games.
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production
Chapman University
1997 - 2002
I originally studied film production with the intention of eventually becomming a filmmaker. I still love film. It didn't take all that long to realize the business of making films was no place for me, so I started looking at post production, effects, and animation. It was when I made my first project in Macromedia Director that I realized how much I enjoyed interactivity and nonlinear storytelling.