SuCo Spotlight December ’24 – Kevin Halstead
This month SuCo wants to spotlight Kevin Halstead. Kevin joined the team five years ago this month fresh out of coding bootcamp, with an ambitious drive and a desire to learn to code. In that time, Kevin has grown to be our Senior Front End Developer – Lead, and he is the person to call when you need something done. Kevin works tirelessly to ensure our applications work well for the business and our customers. His efforts have helped grow the business in many ways and he is a great leader and mentor. Take a minute to learn a little more about Kevin…
Can you share a moment when a challenging project pushed you to grow as a developer?
Each project brings its own opportunity for growth, but the one that really pushed me was our v2.5 TYP project. The challenge of reducing ad rendering times on our thank-you pages from 7–10 seconds to 2–5 seconds was both challenging and rewarding. It pushed me to think creatively and dig deep to find a solution. I gained a lot of confidence from that experience and learned skills I’ve carried into a lot of other projects.
What’s a skill or technology you’re excited to master next?
I’m most excited about with Astro and its ability to seamlessly integrate with popular frameworks like React, Svelte, Vue, and even SolidJS. This flexibility allows developers to use the best tools for the job without being locked into a single approach. What’s even better is that Astro optimizes these frameworks by rendering static content at build time and hydrating only the components that need it on the client. This means you get the interactivity of React, Svelte, or Vue when needed, but without the performance hit of loading an entire framework for the whole page.
If your code had a personality, what would it be?
I’d say my code is adventurous. I’m always looking to grow, learn, and try new things. There are so many ways to solve problems, and I enjoy finding the best approach to help our applications scale.
What’s your go-to snack or beverage during a coding marathon?
My go-to everyday regardless of a coding marathon is definitely coffee.
