Ed Henderson
- Edward Christian Henderson
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- ed@teamhendo.com ed@neep.scot
- +44 (0) 7415 124 053
- ed-henderson linkedin.com/in/ed-henderson
- @edhenderson github.com/edhenderson
- Senior Front End Engineer specialising in accessibility, performance and design systems, with delivery experience spanning UK Government (MHCLG), UNOPS and Mastercard Foundation
- Fast ramp‑up in existing codebases, with a focus on maintainable, accessible, performance‑minded UI
- Lead Front End Engineer specialising in React, TypeScript, accessibility and modern design systems, with recent UK Government (MHCLG) delivery experience
- Best suited to existing products that need features finished, bugs untangled, UI stabilised and releases pushed over the line
- Recent delivery across SaaS, public sector, data‑heavy applications and global non‑profit platforms
- Comfortable dropping into unfamiliar codebases, following existing patterns and shipping without drama
- BSc (Hons) Computer Science, Heriot–Watt University
- Hands‑on engineering leader with a Front End background, leading teams, mentoring engineers and shipping product in fast‑moving environments
- Suited to player‑coach roles that combine technical credibility, high standards and people development
- Experience spanning team leadership, hiring, mentoring, architecture and delivery across startups, SaaS and global organisations
Summary
- Contract focus: Lead Front End delivery with React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Next.js, accessibility, design systems and complex UI delivery
- Best fit: Finishing half‑built features, stabilising existing apps, untangling UI bugs and shipping under time pressure
- Low drama: Drop into an existing codebase, follow the patterns, improve what’s necessary and ship cleanly
- AI‑assisted: Uses AI coding tools day‑to‑day to move faster, not to skip understanding the code
- Hands‑on Leadership: Player‑coach experience spanning engineering management, technical leadership and delivery
- People Development: Mentored engineers, supported career growth and helped interns transition into full‑time roles
- High‑autonomy Environments: Comfortable operating with ownership, trust and minimal process while maintaining standards
- Cross‑functional Thinking: Works closely with Product, Design and stakeholders to shape practical, user‑centred solutions
- Front End Engineer: 25 years of hands‑on web development, from startups to UK Government and United Nations platforms
- Modern Stack: React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS and Headless CMS integrations, including Contentful (certified)
- Global Experience: Lived and worked in the US from 2012 to 2018, and has delivered remotely with teams in Shanghai, Copenhagen, Toronto, Johannesburg, Warsaw and Austin
- Technical Leadership: Led Front End architecture for Mastercard Foundation, CulturaGo, Trickle and Neon Labs
- Mentoring: Hired two interns at Neon Labs and mentored them into full‑time roles; industry mentor for an MSc dissertation at Queen Margaret University and career mentor for three mentees at Heriot–Watt University
- Publications: Author of Jack Draws Anything and technical reviewer for six published web development books
- AI‑assisted Workflow: Uses AI coding assistants day‑to‑day across the development lifecycle
Skills
- React
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- Next.js
- Tailwind CSS
- HTML
- CSS
- REST APIs
- GraphQL
- Storybook
- Playwright
- Jest
- Vitest
- React Testing Library
- Vite
- Accessibility
- WCAG
- Performance
- Core Web Vitals
- Design Systems
- SaaS
- GOV.UK design system
- Headless CMS
- Contentful
- Optimizely
- Mapbox
Skills
- Leadership
- Mentoring
- Line Management
- Hiring
- Performance Feedback
- Team Collaboration
- Effective Communication
- Conflict Resolution
- Agile
- Scrum
- Coding Standards
- Pull Requests
- Project Management
- React
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- Next.js
- Tailwind CSS
- Design Systems
- Accessibility
- WCAG
- Headless CMS
- CI / CD
- Unit Testing
- E2E Testing
- Core Web Vitals
Experience
- Contribute components, fixes, refactors and documentation to the company design system
- Use AI coding tools and internal tooling to remove delivery bottlenecks
- Ship Front End releases with a focus on avoiding regressions and hotfixes
- Support hiring through interviews and technical assessments
- Audited and rebuilt a Contentful + Next.js marketing site for a B2B SaaS platform (homepage, navigation and two net‑new sections) while working within a hard CMS content‑type cap through consolidation rather than a plan upgrade
- Built GDPR/CCPA‑style cookie consent (Consent Mode v2, Google Tag Manager tag gating) and led security header remediation, lifting the site’s HTTP Observatory score from C‑ (45/100) to B (80/100)
- Engaged directly by the client’s CGO/CPO to independently audit a Contentful + Next.js marketing site ahead of a hard product‑launch deadline, delivering a 4‑dimension technical audit that became the roadmap for all subsequent work
- Converted audit findings into a phased, milestone‑priced delivery engagement spanning stabilisation, compliance, security hardening and net‑new feature builds, independently scoping, pricing and managing client sign‑off on each phase
- Designed and shipped GDPR/CCPA‑style cookie consent (Consent Mode v2, banner and Google Tag Manager tag gating for GA4 and LinkedIn Ads) across a live GTM container
- Led remediation of the site’s HTTP Observatory security score from C‑ (45/100) to B (80/100), coordinating fixes with the client’s VP Engineering and a subcontracted developer
- Shipped a homepage rebuild, primary navigation restructure and two net‑new site sections (Careers, Newsroom) on Contentful + Next.js, managing a hard content‑type platform cap through an audit‑and‑consolidation pass instead of a costly plan upgrade
- Coordinated remediation and delivery work with the client’s VP Engineering and a subcontracted developer, using structured written handovers to keep a lean, solo‑led engagement auditable and consistent
- Built and automated a scalable multilingual travel platform generating 120 guides across 40 destinations and three languages
- Delivered performant Front End architecture supporting large‑scale white‑label deployment
- Re‑engaged across three separate phases to extend the platform as new destinations and languages were added
- Architected and developed My Trip Companion / Country Guides, automating the generation of 120 travel guides (each ~20 pages) in under 2 minutes, supporting 3 languages across 40 destinations
- Designed the architecture so new destinations and languages can be added without hurting performance
- White‑label solution used by major players such as AXA, Visa, Mastercard, MetLife and Chubb for their customers
- Delivered React and TypeScript features, production fixes and shared component improvements within a large‑scale SaaS application
- Improved accessibility, semantic HTML, testing stability and complex UI behaviour across forms and modal flows
- Delivered Front End features and production fixes in a large‑scale SaaS application using React and TypeScript, working within an established design system
- Improved accessibility, semantic HTML and component behaviour across complex UI flows, including modals and forms
- Refactored shared UI components and stabilised unit and integration tests, reducing technical debt and improving delivery confidence
Senior Front End Developer
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
UK
– Remote • Contract- Provided Front End technical leadership for a UK Government AI housing initiative, advising on architecture, prototyping strategy and GOV.UK Design System adoption
- Built accessible proof‑of‑concepts using Nunjucks, aligning with GOV.UK Service Standard, WCAG and public sector delivery constraints
- Provided Front End technical leadership for a UK Government AI housing initiative, advising on architecture, prototyping strategy and GOV.UK Design System adoption
- Built accessible proof‑of‑concepts using Nunjucks, aligning with GOV.UK Service Standard, WCAG and public sector delivery constraints
Development Lead / Technical Lead
Senior Front End Developer
Mastercard Foundation
Toronto, Canada
– Remote • Freelance- Delivered a large‑scale, two‑language platform for a global non‑profit organisation using modern Front End tooling and Headless CMS architecture
- Built performant, accessible UI using Eleventy, Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js, Mapbox and ButterCMS
- Planned and led development of a complex two‑language digital platform as part of a multi‑agency team including UX designers and content strategists, focused on global non‑profit audiences
- Led the development of a user‑friendly CMS and mentored collaborators
- Built on a modern JAMstack architecture with a Headless CMS (ButterCMS), Tailwind CSS, Eleventy, Mapbox, Alpine.js and Netlify for performant, scalable delivery
Senior Front End Developer
United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS)
Copenhagen, Denmark
– Hybrid • FTC- Modernised a twelve‑year‑old React application using Storybook, Vite, Playwright, Tailwind CSS and Mapbox
- Improved performance and maintainability across a complex data‑heavy platform
- Led a Front End overhaul of data.unops.org, a twelve‑year‑old outdated web application
- Worked with Storybook, Figma, CSS Modules, Vite, React, Playwright, Mapbox, Flowbite and Tailwind CSS to modernise the codebase
- Delivered JavaScript‑heavy Front End builds with 100+ pages and 50+ reusable UI components using Eleventy and Tailwind CSS
- Improved PageSpeed scores from below 50 to 95+ while leading localisation and Headless CMS improvements with Contentful
- Led three major JavaScript‑heavy website builds using Eleventy, Sass and Tailwind CSS, expanding the site with over 100 new pages and developing 50+ reusable UI components
- Raised Zello’s PageSpeed Insights scores from below 50 to 95+
- Earned Contentful certification and led the migration to a fully localised Headless CMS, improving content manageability and localisation capabilities
- Hired two engineers into the Front End team, then line‑managed and mentored the team through coaching, feedback and clearer engineering direction
- Operated as player‑coach: owned Front End architecture for a SaaS application while supporting engineers to own delivery and technical decisions
- Partnered with Product and Design leadership to align team priorities with company strategy
- Shipped business‑critical features (Anonymous Flares, threaded Comments, Analytics) with the team I built
- Led the Front End architecture of a SaaS application, balancing hands‑on delivery with team leadership
- Hired two engineers, then managed and mentored the web development team through coaching, feedback and clearer engineering direction
- Worked closely with Product and Design while creating space for engineers to take ownership of delivery and technical decisions
- Delivered features including Anonymous Flares, threaded Comments and Analytics
- Developed a responsive React web application supporting employee engagement and wellbeing through real‑time conversations and individual support
- Led the full lifecycle of feature development, from initial concept to design, UX, UI, prototyping, testing and final implementation
- Provided Front End consultancy for an InsurTech startup’s first release and collaborated with an international team on major launches
- Implemented production features and improved data flow between Front End and Back End systems
- Oversaw UX and UI design changes, including a new subscription feature, and collaborated with Product and Design teams to refine the user experience
Senior Software Engineer
Neon Labs
San Francisco, CA, USA
– On‑site • Full‑time- Hired and mentored two interns into full‑time engineers, supporting their ramp into production work
- Owned the Front End development and release process end‑to‑end, including coding standards, style guides and the Component Library
- Architected and launched Neon Pro (JAMstack) in 3 months, generating $200k+ in revenue within the first year
- Partnered with Product, Marketing and Design teams on customer‑facing demos of Neon’s Machine Learning, AI and Computer Vision capabilities
- Architected, built and launched Neon Pro, a revenue‑generating JAMstack web app, in 3 months, generating $200k+ in revenue within the first year
- Collaborated with Product, Marketing and Design teams to build a demonstration of Neon’s Machine Learning, AI and Computer Vision capabilities
- Established coding standards, style guides and a Component Library, taking ownership of the Front End development and release process
- Hired and mentored two interns into full‑time roles
- Architected and launched Neon Pro, generating $200k+ revenue within its first year
- Owned Front End development standards, component library and experimentation initiatives including Optimizely A/B testing
Earlier experience available on request, including leadership and senior engineering roles at Trickle, Sherpa, POPSUGAR and Skyscanner.
Manager, Engineering & Technical Lead
POPSUGAR
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Shanghai, China
- Managed engineering teams across two continents (three engineers in San Francisco, around a dozen in Shanghai), aligning delivery and quality across timezones and cultures
- Player‑coach across video and offshore operations, combining hands‑on engineering with line management and day‑to‑day mentoring
- Led cross‑team coordination and hiring decisions in a fast‑paced media environment while maintaining high engineering standards
- Managed engineering teams of three in San Francisco and around a dozen in Shanghai, overseeing video and offshore operations across multiple locations
- Served as a player‑coach, combining hands‑on engineering with people leadership, mentoring and day‑to‑day team support
- Helped align delivery, team coordination and technical execution while maintaining high standards in a fast‑paced media environment
Earlier Experience
- Principal Engineer, Gliffy, San Francisco, CA, USA (–) – built prototypes and MVPs for next‑generation products with Redux, SVG renderers and JavaScript
- Principal Web Developer, Carizma, San Francisco, CA, USA (–) – built Magnet, a React dashboard for finding, claiming and managing places
- Senior UI Engineer, LeadGenius, Berkeley, CA, USA (–) – took ownership of a Vue.js dashboard and built Fleming, a shared library of visual styles and web components
- Senior Software Engineer, Quantcast, San Francisco, CA, USA (–) – set Front End direction for consumer‑facing web apps and built the Callahan style guide used across its products
- Senior UI Engineer, Healthline, San Francisco, CA, USA (–) – merged seven legacy desktop sites into one responsive mobile site
- Software Engineer, Sugar Inc., London, England (–) – led the responsive rebuild of POPSUGAR TV
- Web Developer, Skyscanner, Edinburgh, Scotland (–) – Front End lead on Dayview and Compare Airlines
- Interaction Designer, Royal Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland (–) – built a browser‑based Sales Illustrator and Benefits Calculator prototype
- Web Developer, ASMALLWORLD, Zurich, Switzerland (–) – redeveloped the public‑facing site and ported legacy PHP functionality to Ruby
- Web Developer, Computershare UK, Edinburgh, Scotland (–) – developed and supported client and internal web applications within a global web team
Full career history prior to 2002 available on request.
Additional individual‑contributor roles prior to 2015 – including Sherpa, Skyscanner, Royal Bank of Scotland, ASMALLWORLD and Computershare – available on request.
Freelance
- SGR Tyres – built the website for an East Lothian 24/7 mobile tyre fitting business
- Porty Beach – built a single‑page Astro site showing live tide times, weather, sea temperature and bathing‑water status for Portobello Beach, pulled from official sources
- Scottish Voiceover Guy – built the site for my own voiceover business, covering commercial, audiobook and AI voice work
- Websworth – built the site for my own website review service, offering plain‑English reviews tested on real devices, with usability and accessibility checks
- Human–AI Interaction Design @ Cornell – shipped a Jekyll site from provided designs, with reusable templates and fast, accessible pages
- Crash Override – developed three Hugo‑based websites (Ocular, Chalk and H4X0R), with consistent branding, fast pages and responsive layouts
- Indebted – led the rebranding of corporate website, optimising 340+ multilingual pages for performance and responsiveness using Hugo and turning Figma designs into interactive components with Tailwind CSS
- Make IT Simple – raised PageSpeed Insights scores to 98–100 by overhauling HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and improved SEO and accessibility while maintaining the existing design
- TM3 – improved Core Web Vitals across 200+ Hugo‑powered pages
- Goons of Balatroon – built a Hugo‑based gallery dynamically generating 10,000 individual asset pages with consistent metadata, structured markup and performance at scale
- Jack Draws Anything – designed, built and ran the 600+ page Jekyll site and social campaign for my son’s charity drawing project: 536 pictures, £64,788 raised for Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity and 400,000+ visitors from 163 countries. Won Social Campaign of the Year at the .net Awards (2011)
Education
- Second Class Upper Division (2:1)
- Merit Award (2nd Year)
- Dissertation Topic: The Development of an Interactive Multimedia Fire Safety System for Primary Six Pupils
Publications
Author
- Jack Draws Anything – published in the UK (), Brazil () & Republic of Korea (), ISBN: 9781444907476
Publications
- Author of Jack Draws Anything; technical reviewer for six published web development titles, including Eleventy by Example and Responsive Web Design by Example
Licences & Certifications
Teaching & Mentoring
Industry Mentor
MSc Dissertation Project · Queen Margaret University
Edinburgh, Scotland
– Present Remote • Part‑time- Providing weekly mentoring to an MSc student building a website prototype for an Edinburgh‑based theatre company
- Advising on Front End architecture, design‑to‑production workflow and modern web tooling
- Engaged under the supervision of Dr Dave Wood, Programme Leader of the new BA(Hons) Digital and Graphic Design
- Supporting three mentees in long‑term career planning through Heriot–Watt University's Career Mentoring Programme
- Sharing industry insights and professional experience to help mentees navigate career decisions, CV development and interview preparation
- Facilitating connections within the web development industry through professional network contacts
Skills
- JavaScript
- TypeScript
- HTML
- Accessibility / A11Y
- WCAG
- REST API
- GraphQL
- Contentful
- ButterCMS
- Headless CMS
- WordPress
- Jekyll
- Eleventy
- Hugo
- I18N
- L10N
- Netlify
- Vercel
- Vite
- GitHub Actions
- Node.js
- Design Systems
- Storybook
- Jest
- Vitest
- React Testing Library
- Playwright
- Mentoring
- Line Management
- Hiring
Interests & Hobbies
- Getting kids coding
- Speaking at local schools
- Rugby
- Golf
- Paddleboarding
Additional Information
- Scottish / British Citizen
- Basic proficiency in German
- Open to permanent, contract, consulting and fractional leadership opportunities
- Immediately available for remote UK contract work
- Open to engineering leadership roles