Hi. I'm Boki and I am a web developer gypsy designer overall decent person code monkey dreamer

My name is Bojan Beran but most people know me as Boki and I am a Web UI Architect in Consumer Tax Group at Intuit Inc. I lead the technical strategy in web development and responsive design for the Consumer Tax Group, but I spend some of my time driving open source efforts, recruiting and driving change management. I led the design and development efforts of Fuego, a semantically driven UI framework that today powers most of TurboTax. I hope to get it open sourced soon. I have also helped lead the adoption of node.js as well as working with other large partners in establishing EnterpriseJS, a community dedicated to solving large scale JavaScript problems in a collaborative environment. Check it out here: EnterpriseJS.io. I've also been driving change in how we work at Intuit helping transform a 25 year old desktop company into a new service oriented one. I've also been known to give talks about some of my work.

Prior to my current role at Intuit, I was a Technical Lead at Piksel Inc where I worked on AT&T's UverseOnline application as well as working closely with R&D teams and developed connected TV applications.

I'm passionate about learning new technologies, teaching (he has several publications) and collaborating with internal and external communities.

Specialties: JavaScript, Angular.js, React, Handlebars, T3.js, Node.js, MooTools, jQuery, HTML, HTML5, CSS, CSS3, XML, UX, usability, management, recruiting, team leadership, design, rapid development, technical architecture, connected TV

What do I know?

My Talks

Languages

  • JavaScript

    • ECMA 2015
    • FuegoJS
    • React
    • Angular
    • Handlebars
    • MooTools
    • Jquery
    • Modernizr
  • Layout

    • HTML5
    • CSS3/2015
    • LESS/SASS
    • Foundation, Bootstrap
  • Server/CICD

    • Node JS
    • Express/Restify
    • Grunt/Gulp/Webpack
    • Babel
    • Karma/Mocha/Chai
  • ...and others...

    • Java
    • Python
    • Groovy
    • Perl
    • PHP

Methodologies

  • Agile

    More specifically SCRUM. I've acted as a scrum lead and have worked with the scrum master and product owners to improve the process. If you want a continuous stream of features pumped out, this is the way to go.

  • Waterfall

    Not my favorite way of writing software, although it does have some merits. I've spent many a moon working in a waterfall environment.

  • Responsive

    Although not a development process, the methodology of responsive design, or mobile first development, is becoming more and more important as mobile devices become more prevalent browsers. Nothing worse than trying to read tiny text on you phone, huh?

  • Rapid Prototyping

    Sometimes you don't need a polished product with all the bells and whistles. Sometimes you just need a proof of concept, or a design taken to the next level and you can't wait 6+ months to get it. Let me bust it out for you proper quick!

Technologies

  • Databases

    • MySQL
    • MariaDB
    • PostgeSQL
    • Memcached
  • Version Control

    • Git
    • SVN
    • CVS
  • IDE

    • Eclipse
    • Sublime Text
    • NetBeans
    • Coda
  • Other

    • Adobe CS
    • Pencil/Zeplin/OmniGraffle
    • Microsoft Office
    • Atlassian Project Management Tools

What have I been doing?

Intuit

March 2014 -Present
Web UI Architect
As the web UI architect for the Consumer Tax Group, primarily I work with all of the web teams and services teams on designing applications and services for the web, but part of my role is to transform the company from a product based one into a technology focused one. I work with all teams from UI to recruiting in improving standards and practices, shifting to a SaaS architecture and mentoring engineers to build modular/reusable code. I am also working on introducing new technologies, like Node.js to Intuit as a tool for building services. I'm also driving open source effort at Intuit as well as acting as a technology evangelist. I am one of the founding members of EnterpriseJS and organizer of several NodeDay events.

I am also one of the inventors and principal engineer of a declarative UI standard and player technology solving for complex data driven UIs.

Featured speaker at EnterpriseJS.

Traveling

August 2013 - January 2014
Gypsy
I've always wanted to travel the Pan-American highway so in August 2013 I quit my job, sold most of my posessions and set off in a 1992 Ford Explorer that I built myself. I drove to Alaska and back, flew out to Bali for a month and finally headed south towards Central America. Unfortunately my truck broke down half way down Baja California and I was forced to turn around and go home. During my travels I got to see some amazing sights, surf places few people have even seen and explore a small piece of the world new to me.

Piksel

March 2011 - August 2013
Technical Lead
I started at Piksel (formerly Kit Digital, and formerly Ioko) in 2011 as a Lead Web Developer working primarily in HTML, JS and CSS on web based media on demand solutions. Within a year, I was promoted to Technical Lead and worked as a team lead, developer and liaison between our UX and development teams. I also headed up our rapid prototyping team creating functional demos of complex media on demand solutions.

What did I do here?

  • I was in charge of leading several teams comprising of 5 to 9 people as both scrum master and technical lead.
  • I developed different features and improvements using Mootols Framework, HTML5 and Less CSS.
  • I developed features for mobile/smart TV market also using HTML5, CSS3 and JS.
  • I worked as a technical consultant with our UX team, providing technical feedback, scope and overseeing implementation of requested features.
  • I worked directly with the clients, UX and development teams on increasing usage and content exposure.
  • I developed rapid prototype demos showcasing novel solutions to complex problems.
  • I worked closely with project managers on improving our development practices.
  • I worked with the development team to create best development practices and implement new technologies.

RCSB Protein Data Bank

September 2004 - March 2011
Lead UI Developer / Lead Systems Administrator
I started working at the RCSB Protein Data Bank while still an engineering student at UCSD. In the years I spent working there I went from intern to system administrator, to lead system administrator to junior developer and finally a lead web developer. These shifts in responsibility came from my desire to grow in the web industry and learn new technologies.

What did I do here?

  • I redesigned the entire website frontā€end from ground up using Java, HTML, JavaScript and CSS.
  • I optimized site wide JavaScript increasing performance up to 33% (loading and rendering).
  • Wrote custom widget framework that allows users to view large amounts of data and tailor their experience on the site.
  • Designed and implemented a new faceted search system. Designed and implemented a new category browsing system for our educational content.
  • Expanded the MyPDB user accounts to socially annotate entries in our database.
  • Helped design the next generation of our CMS framework in Java.
  • Wrote automation tools in Python for updating 4 separate clusters of servers located in SDSC, UCSD and Rutgers University.

Not So Beautiful People

October 2010 - January 2012
Founder and Developer
Not So Beautiful People was a side project started by my colleague and myself as an experiment in learning new concepts and technologies. The site was written using Java and Groovy on top of the Grails framework and used MariaDB as the database backend. The UI was written using HTML, CSS and JavaScript on top of the JQuery library. It included components for a fast messaging system, content management system and social network interactions. I designed and coded the vast majority of the site, but was forced to shut it down due to lack of interest and high maintenance costs.

My, Myself and I

September 2000 - September 2010
Designer / Developer / Consultant
Since I was a senior in high school I was freelancing as a designer, developer and a consultant for most things print and web. I started off desinging print ads and posters, but very quickly moved on to desinging Winamp skins and MySpace profile pages. As my professional skills expanded I replaced design with web development, most notably specializing in JavaScript and Wordpress solutions to small scale clients. Before concentrating on other projects I provided cosulting services to small and medium sized clients on everything from data center to UX problems.

Contact Me!