Jake Baker

Frontend Tech Lead

Fourteen years building the kind of software where a form going wrong means someone can't get into a conference. Ten years raising children. Different debugging strategies required.

Five years as tech lead at AirLST, before that four years at Aventri (now Stova). I focus on complex user journeys: validation, state, release risk, the gap between staging and what actually happens in production. See more on LinkedIn.

Posts

• Building a starter kit that powers 400+ event registrations — what five years of the same domain taught me about reusable foundations.
• Batch API processing with rate limiting — importing hundreds of guests when the API has opinions about throughput.
• One form submission that registers an entire team — a senior manager picks an event, nominates a trainer, and 22 people get their invitations.
• Reading Notes: Childhood's End — Arthur C. Clarke in 2026 hits differently.

Things I think

• A user getting stuck is a bug even if the code works.
• I'd rather say "I don't know" early than pretend my way into a longer problem.
• AI writes a lot of the code now. Deciding what to build is still the job.
• Frontend should own product behavior, not just UI. The two are not the same thing.

What AI knows about me

Delivers reliably in complex, rules-heavy user flows. Communication is high-signal: concrete artifacts, clear deployment status, precise questions that unblock decisions. Low-ego. Proactively surfaces tradeoffs.

Currently

• Moving back to the UK in summer 2026.
• Vue and Nuxt mostly. This site is Astro.

Outside that: reading, writing, walking, cycling, watching films, listening to music, building Lego, and annoying people with Monty Python.

Get in touch: jakebakerdeveloper@gmail.com