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AJ Barnett, home

Case studies

The work
and what it solved.

Product design, client websites, financial applications, enterprise design systems, and a working AI assistant. Each case explains the problem, my contribution, the result, and what remains limited.
A studio overview of AJ Barnett's Legato, Affinitiv, Equity Trust, Ask A.J., and client website work.
Distinct systems · One product practiceEst. 2001

AJ Barnett

2026 · Product Engineer

Ask A.J. AI Portfolio Agent

Designed and engineered a recruiter-facing AI agent with streamed responses, server-side OpenAI integration, request safeguards, fallback models, cached answers, and graceful degradation.

Challenge
The portfolio needed to show AI product engineering as a working system, not just a claim in copy.
Role
Product Engineer
Approach
  • Kept provider calls, secrets, validation, retries, and fallback behavior server-side.
  • Streamed application-owned NDJSON events so the browser never depends on provider-specific event names.
  • Added request validation, origin checks, local rate limiting, duplicate request protection, token caps, and graceful fallback answers.
  • Structured the knowledge source so future retrieval can build on curated portfolio facts.
Impact
Ask A.J. gives recruiters a direct way to understand AJ's work while demonstrating production-minded AI interface design.
Lessons
“An AI product is the whole system around the model: context, trust boundaries, latency, failure behavior, and cost.”
The real Ask A.J. recruiter-facing AI product interface.

Stack

AIOpenAIReactTypeScriptTanStack StartNDJSON
1
live AI agent
5
availability layers
0
client-side secrets
Read the chapter

CDW

2022–2026 · Senior Software Engineer I / Technical Lead

Legato Design System

Helped lead an enterprise design system that connected design intent, component APIs, documentation, accessibility, and adoption across product teams.

Challenge
A shared UI foundation had to serve dozens of engineers, product teams, and product surfaces without becoming the bottleneck that every team quietly worked around.
Role
Senior Software Engineer I / Technical Lead
Approach
  • Worked with Product Design, Product, QA, and engineering partners to translate design intent into code contracts.
  • Shaped shared libraries, component APIs, tokens, tooling, documentation, and incremental integration paths.
  • Published accessibility and behavior decisions as part of the reusable component contract.
  • Used Storybook to keep examples, states, guidance, and implementation details beside the component.
Impact
Targeted adoption reached 92%, shared patterns cut implementation effort by more than 60%, and the libraries grew to more than 170 shared UI assets.
Lessons
“Systems win when they lower ambiguity. Documentation is a product. The best API is the one that lets a caller write intent, not configuration.”
CDW product detail and listing experiences showing Legato commerce components across two screens.

Stack

ReactTypeScriptStencilStorybookNxTokens
92%
targeted adoption
60%+
less implementation effort
170+
shared UI assets
Open flagship case study

Midland Trust → Equity Trust

2020, 2022 · Software Engineer

Fintech Portals, Client, Payment & Pro

Owned workflow design and production React/TypeScript delivery for regulated IRA and banking-related portals.

Challenge
Self-serve IRA and payment workflows in a regulated industry, where every state, error, and edge case is a promise to the user and a compliance decision.
Role
Software Engineer
Approach
  • Designed workflows in Balsamiq, mocked in Photoshop, then implemented the same flow end-to-end in React/TypeScript.
  • Modeled the domain in PostgreSQL and Sequelize so the UI never lied about state.
  • Treated loading, empty, error, and edge states as first-class UI, not exception handling.
  • Shipped web and Ionic mobile from a single product intent.
Impact
Three portals, client, payment, and pro, running the daily operations of a regulated trust company, owned by a small team that could reason about the whole system.
Lessons
“Financial software is a trust product. Every UI decision is a compliance decision. The path from workflow diagram to production code is the actual job.”
The Equity Trust self-directed IRA experience presented across desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Stack

ReactTypeScriptPostgreSQLExpressIonic
3
portals shipped
Annual
banking training
1
team, end-to-end
Read the chapter

Priority Marketing

2016, 2020 · Web Developer

50+ Custom WordPress Websites

Delivered 50+ bespoke WordPress builds: custom themes, responsive design, SEO, GSAP animation, and hosted deployment.

Challenge
Fifty-plus client sites, each a real business with real editors, all shipped at agency cadence without turning into fifty maintenance liabilities.
Role
Web Developer
Approach
  • Custom themes hand-built around the editor's workflow, not the developer's convenience.
  • GSAP used surgically, motion that supported the story, never decoration for its own sake.
  • SEO and performance baked into the template layer so editors couldn't accidentally regress them.
  • Deployment discipline: the boring parts done reliably, every time.
Impact
A body of sites that stayed maintainable long after handoff, proof that volume and craft aren't at odds when the templates carry the discipline.
Lessons
“Great CMS work is 20% templates and 80% empathy for the editor. This is where I first understood that systems are built for other humans.”
The real LSI Companies, Artisan Eatery, and Hope Hospice websites across desktop, tablet, and laptop.

Stack

PHPWordPressGSAPSEOApache
50+
sites shipped
100%
custom themes
Editor-first
authoring
Read the chapter

Moore & Scarry → Caldwell & Kerr → Affinitiv

2015, 2016 · Junior Designer → Senior Frontend

Automotive Campaigns, The Origin of the Product Instinct

Progressed from design production into senior frontend at Caldwell & Kerr (formerly Moore & Scarry, later Affinitiv), high-cadence automotive advertising where I learned visual hierarchy, conversion, typography, and how to earn a user's attention. This is where the engineering instinct was forged.

Challenge
High-volume automotive campaigns where every pixel was asking the user for a decision, and every deadline was tomorrow.
Role
Junior Designer → Senior Frontend
Approach
  • Learned visual hierarchy by shipping under pressure, the eye follows weight before words.
  • Owned the frontend end of campaigns: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and enough PHP to keep the pipeline moving.
  • Progressed through four roles by treating each brief as a product, not a task.
Impact
The foundational literacy every interface engineer needs, hierarchy, conversion, typography, attention, earned inside real deadlines with real accountability.
Lessons
“Craft is a discipline. Typography is the quiet architecture of trust. User attention is the scarcest resource in every product I've built since.”
The Affinitiv digital advertising experience presented across desktop and mobile devices.

Stack

HTMLCSSJavaScriptPHPHierarchyConversion
4
role progressions
Agency
cadence
Origin
of product thinking
Read the chapter

End of the case studies

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