Julie Zimmerman

Web Development

Building useful web experiences on top of sound engineering.

I build production web systems that connect interface work with data, accessibility, performance, content operations, and long-term maintenance.

My experience ranges from institutional and enterprise platforms to custom agency applications, e-commerce, real-estate search, content-rich WordPress sites, and static systems designed around privacy.

Philosophy

Engineering Philosophy

A web experience is only as strong as the system supporting the person using it.

Accessibility is a functional requirement.

  • Interfaces should reflect real user tasks and content relationships.
  • Performance and resilience are part of usability.
  • Front-end decisions should not create avoidable operational debt.

Front-end decisions should not create avoidable operational debt.

Problems

Problems I Solve

The most valuable work usually begins where a system has accumulated complexity, operational risk, or assumptions no one has revisited.

  • Accessible responsive interfaces
  • Custom search, mapping, forms, and editorial tools
  • API-backed and data-intensive experiences
  • E-commerce and transactional workflows
  • Modernization of long-lived production sites

Approach

How I Work

I connect interface choices to the underlying content model, data source, browser behavior, and maintenance workflow.

I build progressively, test the critical path, and preserve clarity between presentation, business logic, and data access.

Selected Projects

Work that makes the method visible.

Adaptive Experiences

A multi-perspective planning architecture that preserves distinct constraints instead of flattening them.

  • Structured human inputs
  • Independent analytical perspectives
  • Actionable synthesized plans

Zoological Institution CMS Framework

A specialized WordPress content model informed by twelve years of institutional zoo photography.

  • Animal and collection-centered content architecture
  • Editorial workflows for nontechnical teams
  • Reusable structured content

Job Costing & Purchase Order Applications

PHP/MySQL tools that replaced opaque or single-user business processes.

  • Accurate labor-cost visibility
  • Shared browser-based workflows
  • Legacy FileMaker integration

Finding Your Neighborhood

Privacy-preserving community architecture

Finding Your Neighborhood explores how people can discover communities without surveillance, behavioral profiling, or centralized data collection.

The project also demonstrates my approach to AI-assisted engineering. AI accelerated implementation and challenged assumptions throughout development, while architectural decisions, integrity verification, and publication standards remained under human control.

FYN applies the same philosophy I bring to AI systems: minimize unnecessary data collection, keep behavior inspectable, and preserve user control.

  • Static GitHub Pages architecture
  • Python build system
  • Build-time integrity verification
  • Referrer-scrubbing architecture
  • Client-side matching and discovery
  • No database
  • No tracking
  • No advertising

Experience

Representative experience.

Zee Creative · 2011–Present

Lead Web Developer

Lead developer and systems architect for a large, long-lived portfolio of production websites and integrations.

  • 250+ active web environments
  • Custom application and integration development
  • Technical standards, migration planning, launch QA, and incident response

SunGard Higher Education · approximately 8 years

Lead Software Engineer

Technical lead in enterprise higher-education software, working across large Oracle systems, performance testing, defect analysis, and release delivery.

  • Synthetic data generation exceeding one million records
  • Defect cross-reference and recurrence prevention
  • Enterprise release estimation and delivery

Technologies

Core technologies and areas of focus.

Front End

HTMLCSSJavaScriptResponsive DesignWCAG

Application

PHPWordPressREST APIsWooCommercePython

Focus

UsabilityAccessibilityPerformanceStructured ContentSearchMaintainability

Business Value

Why integrated web engineering matters

Treating the interface as separate from content, data, and operations creates fragile experiences. Integrated web engineering aligns all four.

The result is a site that works for visitors, editors, and the people responsible for keeping it alive.

Contact

Let's Talk

For technical leadership, architecture, modernization, or complex systems work, contact me directly.

Contact Julie
Useful interfaces begin with an accurate understanding of the system behind them.