I'm a passionate senior leader with proven experience across multiple domains. I drive results through strategic integration of customer empathy, brand positioning, technology, and culture. I've always focused on people: UX is about the total experience of your customer and team, and empathy is essential to making the right decisions.
Driven by the quantifiable and pragmatic, I encourage colleagues and team members to look for creative solutions that work within given constraints and achieve the desired results. I influence the team to look past rigid universal approaches, ego, or blind trend adoption to put the organization and goals first.
This is (one version of) my resume.
These are things people have said about me.
Get to know me as a human.
Below, you'll find a growing collection of projects and case studies. I plan to add and update gradually, so check back later for additional work samples and results. I have some projects listed on both Linked In & wellfound as well.
At these professional site profiles, you can find more information that will eventually find its way here. Including things people say about working with me, and skill assessments from those platforms.
Pretty much all of this is also on Linked In.
"I've worked closely with Sarah Jean in leadership roles at both Singapore Math and Sock It to Me. Her expansive knowledge of branding, marketing, systems technology, and management make her one of the most effective problem solvers I've ever met. I mean, she's a marketer who can code! That means she knows all of the ins and outs of building a successful campaign - from laying out the visuals and writing copy, to making sure your promo code works on your website and getting you a phenomenal ROI on your costs per click. She understands every element of the process. She is also a great team leader whose passion for her work is truly inspiring. I enthusiastically recommend Sarah Jean." Kisa Jones
"Her understanding of branding, ecommerce, and data-driven strategy helped develop the company, our team, and my own professional goals. When she was hired, there was no marketing department. She built the strategy and team from the ground up, incorporating existing core values into each aspect. Sarah Jean's enthusiasm for work and growth is contagious as is her loyalty and dedication to continuous learning." Kathryn Foster
"Sarah Jean's sheer enthusiasm for the company's culture, marketing knowledge and core hardworking ethic helped to make her department one of growth and innovation." Jenica Rodriguez
"Sarah is a brand warrior for the little guy. She has a knack for taking a company's brand and exceeding their expectations without batting an eye." Ezekiel Rudick
"Sarah Jean infuses an incredible amount of passion into the work she does. It fuels her creativity, collaborative spirit and inspires the rest of us to be innovative and forward thinking. In her role as head of marketing, she uses analytics to inform, develop and push boundaries with the creative, but never loses sight of what is authentic to our brand." Iwa Hooe
Context... below are things people said about me 7+ years ago that give insight to my growth beyond design and development, testaments to my holistic approach, communication, and continuous learning.
"Sarah creates stunning website layouts and ads. She is one of those rare designers fluent in both design and code...she has been a key player in Empire's website designs, ads, and web design team management. Empire Covers is lucky to have Sarah on board." Ryan Draving
"Not only was Sarah an incredible asset to the web design and development efforts, she also had great feedback towards creating better user experiences from a web usability, product marketing, and customer service perspective. She was immediately receptive to my requests to "TEST EVERYTHING" as most A/B testing goes, and would often times take the tests a step further to make them more valuable.
To boil it down to a single point: She may be a web developer, but she gets the business side of things, too. I'm always glad when a potential opportunity to work alongside her comes my way." Frank Fumarola
I'm an enthusiastic, outdoors-loving, sociable nerd. I care deeply, I try hard, and I love making people laugh. I never give up, and I always want to do better. I believe everyone has potential to grow and accomplish whatever they want, with hard work and support from those who care about them. I'm always looking to learn something new, get better at what I know, and find the answers to things I don't know. I'm self-directed, but I'm not afraid to ask for help, and I'm not too proud to admit I've made a mistake. I'm unapologetically honest and straight forward, and I trust others will be the same with me. I'm a bit messy, a bit loud, but I'm always my authentic self.
Food: Eating, cooking, sharing, discovering. Nutrition, flavor, culture. Don't ask me to pick my favorite food, that is cruel.
Family: I have a great big extended family, and I love to see them and laugh with them whenever I can.
Mountains, Tall Trees, and Hiking: I love being in the woods, especially on a damp warm day, where you can smell everything and the sun is sucking up the mist as you walk through the trees.
Road Trips I like to get in the car and drive without a destination, for as long as I can. The more I can see, the better. The world is awesome, and there is only so much time to see it all.
Making Things: this has changed over time, these days it's mainly dinner, Duplos and racing tracks. Professionally, I still get to make campaigns and websites, but traditionally I've loved spending time making music, drawing, writing, and coding.
The Lord of the Rings: I once came in 1st place in the state of Oregon for my LOTR trivia knowledge on a phone app. I will tell you about how Viggo broke his toe every time he kicks that helmet, and go off on how Sam is the true hero, and Bombadil should have been part of the extended edition. Don't even bring up the Eagles.
Star Trek: from TOS to Discovery, including Enterprise but not The Animated Series. Janeway is my inspiration, but Garak has my admiration.
This is my face when I look off into the distance pretending that there is something interesting over there.