Rob Abby - Staff Engineer & AI-Augmented Builder

RobAbby

Staff Engineer & AI-Augmented Builder
From Design Systems to Intelligence-Native Products
0+Commits in 9 Weeks
0Native Apple Apps
0Computation Primitives
0Agentic Governance Rules
Background

About

I build products at the intersection of systems engineering and AI-augmented development — shipping complex, cross-platform software as a solo technical founder at a pace that used to require a team.My first 13 years were a deep apprenticeship in frontend infrastructure. I was the first developer at a car marketplace writing jQuery for founders. I spun out an autonomous UX team at Savo, ran 50+ research sessions, and built the company's first design system in Ember. At PartySlate, I joined at 12 people and stayed through Series B — scaling the frontend team, shipping a 25+ component library, and helping drive 258% YoY revenue growth across a platform serving 200k+ monthly users.Now I'm applying that infrastructure instinct to a new kind of engineering. With WavePoint, I'm building a full product — Next.js web app, 6 native Apple apps, shared TypeScript packages, a Swift astronomy engine — solo, shipping 450+ commits in 9 weeks. The multiplier is a purpose-built AI development workflow: governance rules, worktree isolation, a custom MCP server, and a 5-level abstraction ladder that lets me operate at the scope of a small team while maintaining the architectural standards of a Staff engineer.
Systems that absorb complexityBuild the abstraction layer that makes the next 100 features — and the next 100 AI-generated contributions — safe to ship.
AI as infrastructure, not shortcutGovernance rules, review gates, and structured workflows. The value is in the system around the model, not the model alone.
Ship the whole productArchitecture, APIs, native apps, payments, deployment. Staff-level thinking means owning the full surface, not just one layer.
Expertise

Skills

Type-SafeTypeScript
ComponentReact
Full-StackNext.js
SystematicDesign Systems

Languages & Frameworks

JavaScriptVue.jsNode.jsHTML5CSS3SassTailwindGraphQLREST APIsReact QueryApollo ClientStorybookReact Testing LibraryWebpackViteES6+BabelSWCJestEnzymeCypress

Leadership

CoachingPair ProgrammingAgile MethodologiesTeam BuildingUser-Centered DesignDesign ThinkingKnowledge SharingTechnical Writing

Platforms & Tools

ECRECSS3CloudWatchRoute 53FigmaGit & GithubCI/CDVS CodeClaude CodeChrome DevToolsPostmanJiraConfluenceSlackZoomMCP / Agentic WorkflowsSwift / SwiftUI
Career

Experience

IT Manager

2025 - 2025
VIMSIAContract role during international relocation. Led modernization of internal tech infrastructure and web tools at an international Montessori/IB school.

Staff Frontend Engineer

2018 - 2024
PartySlateSupported growth at PartySlate, a dual-sided marketplace platform, from a 12-person early-stage startup to a +50-employee Series-B company while averaging 258.33% revenue growth year-over-year.

Senior UX Engineer

2018 - 2018
project44project44 (B2B) is the leading Decision Intelligence Platform for supply chains, powered by the world's largest transportation data network.

Senior Product Developer

2013 - 2018
SavoSAVO (B2B) was an industry leader in the sales enablement space, providing SaaS software used by some of the largest companies in the world (Disney, American Express, Google, UPS, etc.). I worked within Agile and Lean UX methodologies taking projects from discovery to implementation.

Web Developer

2011 - 2013
Web2CarzWeb2Carz (B2C) is a used car marketplace and editorial platform. I was hired as the first developer and worked directly with the founders to implement a major redesign of the Web2Carz aging site, implement a new editorial segment, and develop an adaptive mobile solution.
Impact

Case Studies

2018–2024 · PartySlateRewriting PartySlate’s Most Impactful PageA ground-up rewrite of PartySlate’s highest-traffic page — redesigned search, interactive map view, and a modernized React/GraphQL architecture that drove a 150% increase in venue inquiries.
150%Increase in venue inquiries
78 → 95Lighthouse accessibility score
-40%Bundle size reduction
Read case study
2013–2018 · SavoBuilding a UX Practice from ScratchLed the creation of Savo’s first dedicated UX practice — from spinning out an autonomous team to running 50+ research sessions and building a living design system that unified product development across Salesforce integrations.
50+User research sessions
30%Increase in user satisfaction
20%Developer productivity improvement
Read case study
Builds

Projects

Portfolio

robabby.com

A Next.js 15 + React 19 portfolio featuring code-generated SVG architecture diagrams, WCAG AA compliance, static generation with dynamic routes, motion/react animations with reduced-motion support, and an integrated AI art gallery with lightbox navigation.
Next.jsReact 19TypeScriptRadix UImotion/reactVercel
Utility

Space-Viz

A disk space visualization tool with interactive D3 sunburst and treemap charts. Scans directories recursively with block-level accuracy, supports drill-down navigation, and handles macOS APFS firmlinks and hidden files.
Next.js 16React 19TypeScriptD3.jsRechartsTailwind CSS
Bot

tldr-bot

An early exploration of AI-powered developer tools — a Discord bot that uses OpenAI’s API to generate sarcastic summaries of channel history and auto-generate memes from message context.
PythonDiscord.pyOpenAI GPT-5 API