One of the most important parts of my job overseeing a software development team is to keep them productive and communicative. Projects run more smoothly when the lines of dialogue are open and honest, and people are happier when they're listened to. And one of the key ways I've found to keep that openness and honesty is what I call the freedom to make mistakes.

Managing many different projects in different languages and frameworks has been challenging, particularly because my background includes very little formal software training. How do I thrive at my job?

The Virus's Tale

As a tech lead, I oversaw and advised a team of four developers building this interactive, immersive story about the rise of COVID-19 in Massachusetts for The Boston Globe.

ToddDukart.com

July-August 2019

The website you're on right now. I built it using Gatsby and Netlify CMS, using several hand-built components.

Directorate 51

May 2019

The website to support the book series Directorate 51. It's built in Gatsby, using an adaptation of a theme from html5up.

Lightogram

October 2016 (mostly)

JavaScript (ES6), Philips Hue API

This JavaScript library allows programmatic access to the Phillips Hue API, allowing local web-based control of those lights.

Wordfinder

August 2017 to present

React

I built this as sort of a “cheat” app for a mobile word game. It’s a fully offline-capable word descrambler. The dictionary, which is pre-processed, supports words up to 10 letters.