KevinGroat

TypeScript has been in my toolbelt since early in its lifespan, back in 2015. I originally used it with Angular, but I have come to love it so much that I use it in every project I start. In my opinion, TypeScript is a necessity for writing maintainable code, especially when working in a larger team or with cross-functional teams.

I have been using React in almost all of my projects since 2017. Throughout the years, I have developed a deep understanding of the inner workings of the framework, as well as how to utilize functional paradigms and React hooks.

NodeJS is easily my favorite language for writing servers and CLI utilities. It encompasses everything I love about the JS/TS ecosystem, and allows it to run natively outside of a browser. A key tool in my repertoire that allows me to iterate quickly, and a key component to understanding things like Next.js.

I only have about 1 year of experience with Next.js and its app router, but I've found server components to be a powerful tool for building React applications. In addition, the use of server actions makes the reusability of server-side code a breeze and largely makes things like REST endpoints unnecessary, especially in combination with a tool like tRPC.

I'm constantly striving to learn new things, and TanStack Start is one of the latest tools I'm adding to my tool-belt. I've always been impressed by every project in the TanStack suite that I've ever interacted with, and TanStack Start is no exception.

I have experience developing both GraphQL backends in node and Java as well as frontends with React. It's a great tool for being able to fetch exactly the data you need to avoid over or under fetching. Even so, unless it's the right tool for the job, I've found that it is overkill for most scenarios.

I have used tRPC in a few personal projects, and have enjoyed the experience greatly. While REST and GraphQL are great options, I believe that tRPC is the best solution for codebases where the frontend and backend live in the same repo, such as Next.js projects.

React Query is my go-to solution for asynchronous state management in React. I've used it in enterprise-scale applications as well as small ones, and it's great in either. I don't start new React projects without it.

I have a small amount of experience with creating truly native applications, and realized early on that I don't enjoy it. That's why I'm thrilled with how easy React Native (especially with Expo) makes it to create beautiful, feature-rich, and fast applications using the technologies I'm most comfortable with.

I've created a couple of small apps using Gleam, and love the language. It still feels a little young, but the community is amazing. It's a typesafe, functional language that compiles down for either the Erlang BEAM VM or JavaScript. Running on BEAM means it is powerful enough to handle highly concurrent workloads with ease, and running on JS means it is portable enough to run on any browser.

I'm very knowledgeable on how to configure Webpack, in part because I've used webpack for most React projects I've been involved with, until recently. Being the most battle-tested of all of the bundlers, I love that it's very powerful and configurable. That said, I'd reach to others for new projects.

I have used vite in a couple of projects and it has proven blazingly fast and incredibly easy to configure, especially compared to Webpack. If given the choice between the two, on any greenfield project, I would choose vite almost every time.

I have used Jest in most applications that I've ever worked on, starting back in 2018. Because of this, it's the test runner I am most familiar with. I'm aware of the 'in's and 'out's of not only configuring it but also its quirks.

I've used vitest in a production codebase only once, and it's lightning fast. It also is easy to configure, allows you to share large parts of your configuration with vite.

I have had a great experience using Cypress for end-to-end and component testing. It has an unparalleled developer experience for such tasks, and has a top-notch cloud offering for viewing and debugging test runs.

If docker has taught me anything, it's that being able to replicate the exact behavior that an application will have in production in every environment - even local development - is key to debugging and creating maintainable solutions. Most applications I work on I choose to use docker in one way or another because it is so vital for cross-environment consistency.

I've used k8s to deploy large-scale groups of microservices and orchestrations while at Oracle. I managed several services deployed to it, including spinning some up from scratch.

I've used vercel to deploy a few personal apps, including this portfolio. I like that using it is a breeze, and its tooling enables easy deployment, branch environments, and reviews.

I have limited experience with Fly.io, but have enjoyed the experience greatly. It's as easy to use as Vercel, but runs any docker image (though using lightweight VMs rather than containers). Because of this, it's very versatile, and I've even used it to deploy Gleam apps.

I have used several CI/CD technologies throughout the years, but GitLab CI is the one I have become the most comfortable with. Its yaml syntax and the fact that its configuration is checked into the codebase make it very user-friendly and easy to debug. The fact that it's capable of running any docker image makes it incredibly flexible as a CI platform.

I'm coming back around to using GitHub again. I took some time away from it because I was all-in on GitLab. This was in part because it's open source and in part because I was using it at work. That said, I've realized that GitHub has all of the features of GitLab now, especially since GitHub Actions are able to harness the power of open source workflows.

I've started daily driving and deploying servers with NixOS. I love that it makes repeatable setup of machines quick and easy without tools like Ansible, and there are now tools built around NixOS to make deployment a breeze, too.

My agentic tool of choice when building software. I've found it to be incredibly useful and powerful, especially when trying to orchestrate agents between harnesses (Codex, Claude Code, Antigravity, Muse Wonder, etc.)

As the first tool I started with when learning agentic coding, Codex will always have a special place in my heart. I logged an incredible amount of time in Codex when it was my daily driver.

Claude Code, being one of the industry-leading harnesses, is incredibly useful. I have extensive experience using it to prompt, code, and everything in between.

Visual Studio Code is my editor of choice, not only because of its incredible support for JavaScript, but also its plethora of extensions. I find working in VSCode a breeze and love its brawn and quirks alike.

I am very comfortable in the terminal, and know many tools to help with scripting and debugging. I've written many shell scripts, ranging from data retrieval and manipulation using curl, jq, and sed to setting up whole workspaces with a single script.

I'm learning game development in Godot. My learning journey is only just beginning, but I like how easy it is to pick up, and love the fact that it's 100% open source.