Brandon Kerr

Full Stack Web Developer

Learn More

About Me

Reflections

My relationship with technology started as love-hate. I attended the USA's top STEM high school. Overwhelmed by the quantitative emphasis, I ended up an Anthropology major - emphasizing a holistic approach to problem solving.

After graduating, I travelled to China with an NGO and lived in a Buddhist temple coordinating cross-cultural education programs. When the program ended, I began working with a Beijing tech startup - leading me to programming. I found web development to be the perfect combination of the creative, technical, and social worlds I wanted to balance. Having found my match, I packed my bag and dog, and dove into the heart of tech - San Francisco.

Expectations

I want to build things that are easy to use, and backed by user data. Within the next 5 years, I will attend a master's program in statistics or applied mathematics, transitioning into data science and process optimization. Several years after which I envision myself returning to school once again - this time for a doctorate in pursuit of machine learning. I want to end the struggle of man vs machine, by making machines understand people.

Web Technologies

JavaScript

React

HTML

CSS

Ruby

Git & Github

jQuery

AJAX

Rails

.scss

SASS

⬢

Node.js

SQL

Python

Project Showcase: SharkByte


SharkByte - Front End Aquarium SharkByte - Front End Aquarium

Built With:

  • HTML, CSS, SASS, Materalize
  • JavaScript, jQuery, Ajax
  • Node.js, Express, EJS
  • MongoDB, Mongoose, Firebase

Features:

  • Users can see HTML, CSS, and JavaScript rendered in real time, previews for mobile and desktop
  • Code can be exported to web-ready files for static pages, or to be incorporated into larger projects
  • Projects are stored on the user's profile page and can be edited at any time
  • Users can toggle a cage to 'public' to collaborate with any other SharkByte user by sharing their cage's link

Portfolio

Explore projects I designed and worked on.

SharkByte - Front End Aquarium

Real-time rendering and collaboration for front-end design

SharkByte - Front End Aquarium

Bookammendation Book Recommendations

Item-Item Collaborative Filtering, using data scraped from Goodreads

Recommendation Engine for Books

Stork - Candy Store

Rails ecommerce platform hosted via Amazon Web Services

Stork - Candy Store

Luke Skyracer

8bit Browser Arcade Game

Luke Skyracer - JavaScript Game

Game using Spotify's API

Realtime Top 20

Spotify Top 20 Game

Parallax Scrolling

Four Seasons Poem

Parallax Scrolling

Bike Route

Simple website integrating Google Maps API

Bike Route

Resume

Work Experience

    Web Developer - Growth, Quantcast; San Francisco
  • Implemented redesigned homepage in PHP, which more than doubled the signup rate
  • Designed and developed first in-product walkthrough, increasing 30-day user retention by over 100%
  • Ideated and developed first in-product experiments targeting user activation, which improved dramatically over 2017 from 22% to 78%
  • Developed infrastructure for and sent first client emails containing real-time data updates, doubling the likelihood of users to engage with the product
  • Redesigned and developed Quantcast Chrome Extension using React
  • Utilized tools like Optimizely, Google Tag Manager, Wordpress, React, Angular, and others to develop user-facing experiments in product and on marketing pages
    Localization Designer, Blued; Beijing China
  • Collaborated with web designer to redesign company website for international users increasing app downloads 22%
  • Worked alongside UX and Engineering teams to remove unused features, reducing 30 day user attrition from 53% to 32%
  • Grew Facebook and Instagram presence by 55% and 22% respectively, acquiring 76,465 Facebook followers and 2,003 Instagram followers
  • Grew Twitter presence by 2,253%, acquiring 7,661 new followers at an average cost of $0.57/follower
  • Championed rebranding of Blued to social media and lifestyle app, expanding market by 9.2x and providing access to new advertising channels
    Senior Instructor, First Leap English; Beijing, China
  • Designed student recruitment activities, prepared and delivered lessons in science, math, and world cultures; built and maintained relationships with parents, edited and revised marketing content produced in English
  • Maintained an 85% closure rate for demo classes
    Program Coordinator, Woodenfish Program; Baoding, China / Remote
  • Oversaw the recruitment of 213 North American applicants
  • Organized fundraising events that collected a total of $154,562
  • Coordinated travel and visas for 53 selected participants arriving in China from various countries
  • Provided translation and interpretation between Mandarin Chinese and English, prepared and delivered culture awareness and sensitivity training sessions as one of four managers for the only international monastic studies program hosted in Mainland China while working closesly with students, volunteers, and monastics
    Student Researcher, Western Kentucky University; Bowling Green, KY
  • Oversaw the implementation of research projects in geology, linguistics, and neurobiology; including grant-writing, research design, project delegation, and analysis/interpretation of results

Education

General Assembly — November, 2016

San Francisco, California

Web Development Immersive

Western Kentucky University — May, 2015

Bowling Green, Kentucky

B.A. Anthropology

B.A. Asian Studies

GPA: 3.6/4.0

Skills

Languages:

Academic Native English, Advanced Mandarin Chinese, Beginner German

Technology:

React, Python, JavaScript (ES6, ES5), HTML, CSS & SASS, Ruby, Rails, Social PPC Advertising and Content Creation, Advanced Microsoft Excel, Basic Database Management for Digital Record Keeping / Tracking, SEO, Java

Other / Interests:

Photography and Visual Design, Marketing, Data Science, Linguistics

Activities

Volunteer Work

ICVS International Vet Clinic, Danlan Public Welfare Beijing, Woodenfish Foundation

Organizations

WKU Chinese Flagship Student Ambassador, FreeCodeCamp, Run Beijing, Photo Walkers, Film Photography League, Work for LGBT

Contact

455 Eddy Street,
Apt. E1205
San Francisco, CA 94109

[email protected]

1-650-750-5450