Jesse Higgins - CEO
About Myself
I've been designing and building websites since 2016 when I joined CS Design Studios as a graphic designer after I graduated from high school. I learned the basics of the web stack and started building the websites I designed in Photoshop. Over the years I've learned alot about interface design and user experience, improving website performance, software technologies and concepts, troubleshooting complex technical issues, communication, and project management.
Software & Tools I Use
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe XD
- Figma
- JavaScript
- PHP
- SQL
- Python
- C#
- HTML5
- CSS3
- Markdown
- RegEx
- Emmet
- WordPress
- Astro
- React
- UI Kit
- Git
- GitHub
- SourceTree
- VS Code
- WP CLI
- Local WP
- Monday
- Asana
- Jira
- Vercel
- WP Engine
- Hostinger
- Linode
Work Experience
I started out at CS with a focus on Graphic Design using Photoshop and Illustrator, designing website concepts as well as business cards, flyers, physical mailers, newsletters, posters, billboards, and more. I've even done some motion graphics with Adobe After Effects and video editing with Premier. Eventually I started doing less of that and more website development with Joomla, and later with WordPress.
WordPress Development
We learned how to streamline the process in order to reduce development time without sacrificing quality. I helped my team to master a particular WordPress theme called YOOtheme. We decided it met our needs and ran with it for new website builds, and it allowed us to quickly build "Concepts" or "Prototypes" with nice consistent UI style themes that we could easiy configure. Once we nailed down a UI theme and the client was on board with it, we could then pretty quickly build out the rest of the site without much creative skill required. All our previous sites were rebuilt as we continued to build all the new websites, which made it easy for other team members with varying levels of expertise to support all our 200+ websites.
This new process decreased the level of technical and design skill that projects generally called for. Of course not completely, it still takes effort to make a visually nice and well functioning website with YOOtheme, its just quicker and easier now.
Personal Projects
On my own time I would explore new frameworks and technologies. I tried to spend time learning more about WordPress which definitely improved the way we do things with plugins and themes in our sites, and helped increased my ability to troubleshoot issues and solve various problems. I also did personal coding projects with Python, JavaScript, and C# (Unity Game Development), and I took any opportunities to program things for clients when they came up, like custom plugins, webscrapers, raffles, etc.
Employment History
CS DESIGN STUDIOS
WEB DEVELOPER, APRIL 2016 - CURRENT
- Started as a graphic designer and learned front-end web development skills with website projects.
- Became familiar with WordPress, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript while building and supporting 250+ websites for various industries.
- Configured DNS records and web host provider settings to bring websites online.
- Learned to use SQL statements and the WP CLI to handle customer requests and solve problems more quickly.
- Used PHP to work on custom WordPress themes and plugins for our client’s websites.
- Ran meetings, gathered requirements, designed concepts, and implemented solutions based on client needs.
- Handled various technical tasks, including programming a web scraper with Python and RegEx.
- Helped to improve the dev process which resulted in fewer problems to fix down the road, reduced website build times, increased load speeds, and raised UI & UX design standards.
- Configured and integrated a Learning Management System in WordPress for the Tucson Association of Realtors.
- Collaborated on a small Unity3D game development project using GitHub and spent a few months writing C# to program gameplay features and debug them.
GO FRACTIONAL CMO
WEB DEVELOPER, 2021 - 2023
- Designed, built, and supported new websites for Pest Friends (pest control company) and Flock Off (bird control company) with WordPress.
- Configured a user portal for a base of Flock Off distributors.
- Redesigned print collateral for the Flock Off device, sales brochures, and other distributed documents.
- Used Regular Expressions to configure a number of domain redirects for the Pest Friends website.
- Used JavaScript and CSS to build custom animated elements on the Flock Off website.
CLOUD CHIEF TECHNOLOGIES
WEB DEVELOPER (OWNER), 2018 - CURRENT
- Designed, built, and supported websites for clients of various industries with WordPress.
- Gave consultations, wrote contracts, drafted estimates, and managed expectations.