Mercatus Technologies Inc.
White label e-commerce solutions
Technologies
React, TypeScript, Apollo GraphQL, PHP, AngularJS, NextJS, Docker, Drupal, Bamboo, JIRA
About
As a software engineer and Scrum Master at Mercatus Technologies, I was responsible for both developing and debugging our accessible and functional white-label components for our retailers. Working mostly in front-end technologies, I led a cross-functional scrum team of 9 people through a variety of scrum ceremonies, achieving over 90% completion of all scheduled tickets in our sprints due to my sprint planning and project management skills.
Challenges
One major challenge I faced at Mercatus was learning AngularJS and PHP on the job while working on a mature codebase. Although I was familiar with other frameworks such as React, at times, I was the sole contributor to the v3 implementation of the white-label product, meaning that I had to learn these languages in a short amount of time. My goal was to not only learn these new languages but further expand my skill set by embracing opportunities where possible. As such, for my second task, I accepted the challenge of implementing the carousel that is now seen on the homepage of all Mercatus sites. I then worked on some major reworks of the site including (but not limited to) an update to the categorization hierarchy on our shop page, and WCAG updates to our production codebase. As a result, there was an increase of 26% in user interactions regarding the product hierarchy and a marked 90% adoption of all of the components that I was tasked with building.
Favourite Part
My favourite part about working at Mercatus was creating something accessible and useful that facilitated real revenue generation for our clients and their member businesses. Having worked with a variety of US retailers, the product I assisted in building gave smaller grocery retailers a chance in an increasingly electronic space, especially when faced with the monopolization of larger companies. Another favourite part of mine was taking on the role of Scrum Master while also remaining an individual contributor. As the Scrum Master with the shortest amount of tenure at the company, I felt honoured to be chosen and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that I was given to both develop my skills as an individual contributor and to be able to delve into the world of project management and Agile development from such a unique perspective.
