AI-Native Senior Full-Stack TypeScript Engineer · Next.js + React Native + Expo · UI/UX Engineer · 20+ years of SWE · BS & MS in Bioinformatics age 19 · Doctor of Physical Therapy

Derek is an extremely talented engineer and an advocate not just for product users, but also for the people building the product. During our time at Primum, Derek and I worked closely on a small team to build a flexible design system to power our new cross-functional web app.

Derek consistently advocated for doing the upfront work to keep our team in a good position down the line. Additionally, as we started building the experience, Derek always advocated for the user, going beyond the basic flows to support fleshing out states, transitions, and moments of joy — often adding improvements and suggestions along the way. He has a keen attention to detail and truly brings a designer’s vision to life accurately and accessibly.

Derek has a deep wealth of knowledge both in engineering and in life, and he has a knack for breaking down complex terms and concepts so our team could explore new workflows, improve skills, and find better ways of working. He led an internal recurring meeting on ways to practice positive psychology and is quick to practice what he teaches.

He consistently gives positive recognition to his team and was a big advocate for creating connection in a remote space — I’ll especially miss his movie recommendations each week! To sum it all up, Derek would be an ideal candidate for a company looking to get things done the right way.

I had the privilege of working with Derek for a year at Primum. He is one of the most dedicated and talented people I’ve worked with. He cares deeply about the projects he is a part of, as well as the success of the team and organization as whole. Derek’s commitment is reflected in his holistic approach to management and software development.

He instilled a high level of ownership and accountability at Primum, modeling high standards for those around him. His clear and direct verbal and written communication made it easier to know what was expected and helped to keep the team aligned and focused.

One of the things that sets Derek apart is his expertise as both a technical manager and a highly productive engineer with a strong product sense. He is thoughtful with software architecture, the development process, and staying up to date with technologies, patterns, and best practices with React, Next.js, and TypeScript. This combination ensured efficiency and quality throughout our work together at Primum, delivering our projects successfully and keeping our team performing at its best.

In addition to his technical skills, Derek is also a valuable mentor. He is always ready to share his extensive knowledge and experience in software and provide constructive feedback. He created opportunities for growth that helped level up the skills of myself and other team members at Primum, encouraging a culture of continuous improvement. Derek was an incredible asset at Primum and I would jump at the opportunity to work with him again in the future!

It is my pleasure to recommend Derek. He and I have worked together since he started at Primum, and I have always been impressed with his organization, communication, work product, and work ethic. As a co-founder of a startup, I have leaned on Derek’s strengths as an Engineering Manager, and I would like to highlight specific areas where Derek excels.

1 – Derek possesses strong organizational skills. Not only is Derek adept at managing his own engineering tasks, but he frequently supports other Primum developers as they breakdown problems. His ability to organize how to tackle a problem has helped improve the output of the entire engineering team while allowing junior engineers to gain confidence. He thinks systematically, creating processes that ensure smooth workflows, and he has built a Primum engineering system that will continue to live on.

2 – Derek’s strong communication skills are tied closely to his organized approach. He provides comprehensive information backed with research to help communicate points allowing the team to make good decisions more quickly. For example, when asked to present his thoughts on how the engineering team should grow, Derek laid out a clear, concise (yet comprehensive) presentation describing options and weighing pros / cons for each potential scenario. This presentation sped the time to decision which is critical in an early-stage startup. Derek demonstrates a strong ability to think through a problem or question deeply then communicate those points to others.

3 – Derek’s ability to think through problems deeply and then deliver high-quality work product makes him an asset to engineering teams. He is adept at writing tickets, planning work, and having a vision for how features should be built for continued improvement of the product. Derek researches technologies and architectures to ensure Primum doesn’t make missteps as we continue to improve on the product which will pay future dividends for our team. Derek also created a thoughtful, structured approach to career development for our junior software engineers. His system of mentoring based on Accountability, Accuracy, and Acceleration is something that has helped me better understand the performance and growth of our engineering hires.

4 – Derek can deliver high-quality work product because of his tremendous work ethic, and his commitment to accountability as a software engineer and manager. If he says that he will take on a piece of work, he takes it on and delivers a high-quality result. We asked Derek to step into the Engineer Manager role, and he grew into the role. He holds himself and his team accountable for product deliverables which means that Primum can deliver a high-quality tech product on a timely basis. As a leader, I can count on Derek to fully own the code development process, and I am impressed with his ability to put work down to jump on high-impact bugs solving them quickly with little interruption to our users.

Professional: Derek designed, built, and copy wrote two of my websites, including my new one. I had originally suggested a WordPress.com blog, which Derek designed and built out to my specifications. However, we agreed that my blog could reach a larger audience at Medium, so Derek redesigned and rebuilt the WordPress website. He came up with an impressive, original web design while significantly improving the website’s performance and mobile design.

The WordPress site took over 12 seconds to load, but the new site loads in under 3 seconds. He even added a dark mode, which was a great touch. Derek remained enthusiastic about the project throughout, and went the extra mile to make sure the site was written with high-quality code and would rank well for SEO. His exceptional writing and ability to organize information really put my site over the top. I’ve already referred Derek to a colleague looking for a new website because I absolutely trust his problem solving and communication skills. I would genuinely recommend him to anyone looking for a web developer who’s also a great communicator.

Personal: Derek and I have been friends since freshman year of high school, when he was 11. Even then, one of his biggest strengths was his ability to explain complex topics in simple terms. He’s not didactic or trying to teach, he’s just a natural educator. He’s also adventurous, creative, and always meticulously working on something cool and new. Ask him about his travels, his charity project, gaming, programming, web development, genetics, physical therapy, etc. He’s a fun dude who isn’t afraid to seize the day.

Dr. Derek Austin is an exceptional engineering manager who fosters a positive and growth-oriented environment for his team. I had the pleasure of working under his leadership for almost a year as a full-stack developer.

Dr. Austin’s guidance was instrumental in helping me develop my problem-solving skills. While working on the Primum cross-platform application, his insights always helped us overcome critical technical hurdles and ultimately deliver the features on time.

Dr. Austin is a highly skilled communicator who excels at delegating tasks and motivating his team members. I highly recommend Dr. Austin to anyone seeking a talented and inspiring engineering manager.

As a graduate of Nucamp Web Development Bootcamp who was in the process of finishing my second Bachelor’s, I knew I was right on the cusp of getting a great position as a front-end engineer. I asked for resume feedback in the Nucamp Slack community, and Dr. Derek Austin volunteered to provide me detailed notes on my resume and portfolio.

His helpful attitude and enthusiasm impressed me, as I hadn’t been one of his students, so his mentoring really went above & beyond. His knowledge of both software engineering and personal marketing made an impact right away. After a few weeks of collaboration, I could better communicate my personal brand, and suddenly I was having much better results from my job hunt.

Now that I’m working as a front end developer, I’ve had the chance to “pay it forward” and help other engineers with their own job hunts. I’d recommend Dr. Derek Austin for anyone needing a front-end developer, mentor, technical writer, or entrepreneur.

I came across Dr. Derek’s articles on Medium and was always fascinated by how detailed and well-presented they were. He has fantastic writing skills that make it hard for a reader to stop reading once they started.

I attended his talk at Momentum 2021, and even though I’m not an SEO geek, I found his talk incredibly valuable. It gave me a lot of things to think about when I write, and some important information about how to structure a headline that gives you clicks.

Dr. Derek is also a fantastic editor. He edited an article that took me the longest time to write, and with his inputs, it became even better. If you’re ever looking for a technical writer, an editor, or an SEO specialist, I can’t recommend Dr. Derek enough.