Josh Reeder-Esparza

I’ve spent over a decade working on the web, with experience across every discipline involved in putting ideas online. From design briefs, wireframes, and mockups to content management, project management, server administration, shipping, and maintaining websites. I’ve worked with restaurants, the wine industry, churches, hotels, farms, large-scale commodity boards, and e-commerce shops. Most recently, I focused on a single product, leading feature development informed by user needs and feedback.

Currently, I run Sola Co, a consulting firm that helps businesses and teams build better digital experiences. If you're interested in working with me, reach out.

AltText.AI Head of Engineering Late '24 - Present

Leading engineering efforts at AltText.AI, where we make the web more accessible through AI-powered image descriptions. I joined after the initial platform was built and now focus on scaling infrastructure to support 70,000+ users while expanding our integration ecosystem. Our platform helps businesses improve SEO and meet accessibility standards by automatically generating high-quality alt text. My responsibilities include enhancing our Ruby on Rails application, implementing OpenAI and Azure Computer Vision APIs, optimizing image processing pipelines, managing cloud infrastructure on AWS, and ensuring system reliability through comprehensive testing and monitoring.

Sola Co Owner 2024 - Present

Through Sola Co, I partner with teams that need help building and maintaining web applications. I specialize in Ruby on Rails but work comfortably across the full stack and with a range of frameworks. I enjoy solving performance problems, implementing solid architecture, and helping teams ship quality code. Day-to-day, that means database optimization, API design, frontend development, and DevOps.

Over the years I’ve worked extensively with Postgres, Redis, JavaScript, and modern CSS frameworks, and I’ve built reliable deployment pipelines along the way. Whether I’m untangling a legacy codebase to address technical debt or building new features from scratch, my focus is on delivering solutions that are maintainable long after the work is done.

If you need someone who can jump in and contribute quickly to your tech stack, let’s talk.

MxU Full Stack Engineer Oct 2020 - Aug 2024

MxU’s core product is a Rails app used to train worship and tech teams in video, audio, lighting, and leadership. I built and maintained a robust platform helping those responsible for weekend services train volunteers in local churches around the world. Over my 4 years there, MRR more than tripled, ARR hit major milestones, and the team grew from 2 to 12.

I came on as the first employee and was solely responsible for the product for a period, later collaborating with two other engineers in varying capacities.

I wore many hats at MxU. On the Rails side, I implemented Hotwire Stimulus and Turbo for interactive features, built custom video player integrations with Mux and Vimeo, and optimized database queries for performance. Beyond the core app, I developed marketing sites using WordPress, Jekyll, and other static site generators, created HubSpot landing pages for business partnerships, integrated CRM functionality between HubSpot and our application, set up e-commerce on Shopify, and built annual event sites integrated with Eventbrite. Our stack included PostgreSQL, Redis for caching, Sidekiq for background processing, and TailwindCSS for styling.

Honey Senior Developer Feb 2016 - Oct 2020

As the sole developer, I built custom client websites from scratch, often managing 2–3 projects simultaneously while working closely with the design team to bring creative concepts to life. I took an active role in client discovery sessions, contributed to design briefs, and presented technical solutions, completed websites, and training documentation to stakeholders. In addition to leading development, I managed ongoing maintenance contracts to ensure long-term functionality and performance. Many of the websites I built continue to see heavy use with minimal changes years later—something I’m genuinely proud of.

Bamboo Creative Web Developer Jan 2012 – Jan 2016

At Bamboo, I built websites from the ground up, handling everything from initial sketches and wireframes through to deployment and ongoing maintenance. I set up and configured LAMP stacks, managed Git-based deployments, and developed custom WordPress themes for multisite networks. Beyond new builds, I maintained a portfolio of 20+ client websites, keeping them updated, secure, and performing reliably.

Feif Ties / Trestle Leather Co Owner Jun 2010 – Jan 2013

Years ago, I launched and ran several Etsy shops, designing and handcrafting ties, belts, and wallets from raw materials. Within a few years, I was shipping products to customers across the USA, Germany, Australia, and Japan. I managed budgets and expenses, learning how to make bulk purchases and optimize product timing. The experience offered valuable lessons in entrepreneurship, operations, and customer service.

• AltText.AI — Leading engineering and support for this accessibility platform. I joined after the initial build to scale the infrastructure and enhance reliability. Working with Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Sidekiq, and AI technologies (OpenAI GPT Vision and Azure Computer Vision). I implemented front-end designs from Philippe Bosshart.
• MxU — A few things have changed since I left, but here are some pages showing the design direction I helped move the product toward:
  • Videos
  • A single video page
  • A course page
• BKD Creative — Portfolio page for a lighting team on tour with Thomas Rhett.
• Saints Church — Jekyll site for my church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Built with the design team at Honey (employer from 2016 to 2020)

• Lange Twins Winery — WordPress with a Winedirect integration for a fifth-generation California Winery.
• The Central Kitchen — WordPress for a state-of-the-art district-wide kitchen in Sacramento, CA.
• Honey — WordPress for Honey to show off their work.
• 29 Palms Inn — WordPress for a historic Inn just outside Joshua Tree, CA.
• Pressley Vineyards — WordPress with a Shopify integration for an up-and-coming California Winery
• Lei Back — Shopify site.
• Everlee Skincare — Shopify site.

Engineering

I’ve worked with countless languages, web frameworks, and CMS platforms; enough that picking up a new RESTful architecture is pretty simple and a fun endeavor.

In my agency time, I built websites that worked for our clients. Not GPU-hungry webpage builders, but custom-tailored CMS dashboards that had the flexibility to adapt and grow with their business, while being rigid enough to not overload someone less technically savvy. The goal was to build something that wouldn’t later require an engineer to make something look good and remain accessible.

Working in a product company, the focus was constantly providing value for those who used the product and solving the problems of people who hadn’t used it yet. We ran a mostly test-driven Rails monolith that let us iterate fast and respond to feedback from users. Time was spent ensuring we didn’t introduce future technical debt by optimizing queries and taking the time to sketch and design systems before we started to build them. It was rewarding work.

Front End

When a project allows for it, I love working with in-browser animation. If I didn’t get motion sickness building it, the project suffered. From butter-smooth transitions between pages and states to the more detailed implementation working with After Effects exports for SVG animation, it’s all a treat.

Performance

I have spent a lot of time focusing a ton on performance. The internet gods reward speed and lightness, and every MB counts in the LCP, FCP, CLS wars. Additionally, the web just feels better when the bottleneck isn’t a 4 MB VSCO jpeg in the background of the footer. In a product, this ends up being pretty simple, but with high-touch client work it takes a lot to strike a balance when the brand has 3 fonts and the client just paid 5k for a photo shoot. Working with responsive images, lazy- & pre- loading, caching, and utilizing CDNs and edge networks, I found ways to meet in the middle.

A11y

I strive to hit good accessibility standards. It all should work for everyone, and the work to make that possible really isn’t all that hard. Accessibility ends up creating benefits for folks that don’t need any assistive technology in the first place, and usually, it just looks like building things with valid syntax. Additionally, we experienced numerous hotels that would get drive-by ADA lawsuits because of a failed lighthouse test, or government contracts that had an high standards based on what WCAG was at the time.

Servers / DevOps

• Git — I’ve used it solely to manage CI, to work in a PR process with code review, or simply to manage my projects.
• CI — I’ve worked with various systems—with and without a test suite. Heroku, Beanstalk, GitHub actions.
• Servers — Setting up, managing, and maintaining servers was my bread-and-butter for agency work. Linux, AWS, Heroku, Linode, all the WordPress ones. Doing it ourselves meant low-cost, which helped to make maintenance contracts viable.
• DNS / CDNs — Similarly, agency work gives any developer their fair-share of experience managing DNS records, hunting down someone’s GoDaddy account, and handling CDNs.

Design

While I wouldn’t claim expertise at something like brand development, I’m very comfortable designing interfaces and webpages. 10 years of needing to develop an eye for typography and color, as well as the early days of “pixel-perfect” project scopes, taught me how to build according to a design and interpret the designer’s intent. I’ve collaborated extensively with designers to realize their vision within a project’s scope—whether expanding it or refining the design to hit a deadline.

• Figma — This is all I use today.
• Illustrator, Photoshop — I used the Adobe suite for years (Bamboo & Honey), but these days I prefer not to install malware on my computer ^[sic]. I’ll reach into Illustrator if I’m trying to do something with an SVG that I simply can’t get Figma to do.

The Other Stuff

CMS / CRM / eCommerce

“Other people’s tools that need to work with ours.” I’ve integrated a handful of CRMs into various products, built multiple Shopify sites, been tasked with implementing arcane winery-specific e-commerce integrations with little-to-no-documentation—in short, I’m used to working with tools that don’t always make the integration process simple and require problem-solving and “discovery” to make them work.

HTML Email

This one feels strange to single out, but special beasts live in special places. I spent a ton of time building out custom emails for various clients on various systems (MailChimp, HubSpot, Constant Contact, Intercom, SendGrid etc.) with all of their various syntactic sugar. Love it or hate it: email makes money, and making HTML emails is somehow still like building webpages in 2006.

Writing

Everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve enjoyed writing. Either in lieu of Lorem Ipsum, or simply being a professional that needed to communicate clearly with clients. I’ll concede: sometimes I could use an editor.

Team / Communications

Similarly, I enjoy working with and communicating with clients; I always presented my own work and would train clients directly—whatever their skill set—on how to use the things we built. I’ve worked in teams where extreme detail was beloved as well as teams where minimal communication was extolled, I thrive in each. I’ve worked for years at a time in-person and for years at a time remote, I believe both have their advantages. It feels odd to note but, yes: Word, Google Sheets, Notion, Pages, Basecamp, Jira, Slack etc.