Muhammad Umer

When I joined Amazon, the company was in the midst of migrating from AngularJS to ReactJS. The team had made significant progress, but some key components and processes were still in the early stages. I began my journey with the Single Sign-On (SSO) team, where my first major project was to migrate the SSO applications to ReactJS. This was not just a code update; it involved developing new infrastructure, handling regional deployments, and even building for the China and GovCloud regions.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was that the project had been in a mixed-up state. It had been started two years prior and then abandoned due to uncertainties about its future. I took ownership of the project, diving into the complex code and infrastructure. I coordinated with over 50 teams to ensure that their dependencies on the sign-in process were not disrupted, especially their integration tests. Despite the initial chaos, I successfully delivered and launched the project within the given timeline.

The successful delivery of this project helped me earn trust for a larger and more significant project: revamping the entire login screens for Amazon. This was a critical path project because dozens of teams relied on it for integration and canary testing, and it is used by millions of customers every day. The biggest challenge was managing its immense scale. I implemented numerous performance optimizations, reducing the bundle size and improving the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) of the application. Additionally, I wrote several best practice documents to ensure my changes did not disrupt any dependent teams.

To support this effort, I led AWS-wide awareness campaigns to ensure all teams were informed about the changes and how to integrate them smoothly.

As a key member of Upwork’s core team, I spearheaded the migration of core freelancer views from AngularJS to Vue.js, significantly enhancing performance and user experience. Some of the achievements in this project included:

- Implemented lazy loading and infinite scroll, reducing page size and preventing crashes on Upwork's heavy pages.
- Introduced server-side rendering to improve SEO and First Contentful Paint (FCP).

Due to my strong performance and exceptional communication skills, I was selected for the highly critical Paid Invitation Badge project during its early design stages. My role expanded to include early stage involvement, where I engaged with a diverse working group comprising designers, economists, and product managers, contributing from the initial sketching of prototypes to the final delivery of the project.

I served as the engineering representative, leading a large-scale project across five different teams, ensuring seamless integration and timely delivery. This was a highly complex and ambiguous project, and successfully delivering it not only enhanced Upwork's matchmaking by 15% but also earned me a promotion within the company.

As part of Lululemon’s Loyalty team, I’m leading the membership tiering effort to create a better experience for our customers. I focus on building intuitive front-end features with React and Next.js, while using GraphQL to ensure everything works seamlessly. Collaborating with amazing teams, I love turning ideas into impactful solutions.