Full-Stack Development for Community Platform Startup

BuildIRL helps clubs manage memberships, collect dues, and grow more sustainably.

Status

Client work

Role

Founding Engineer

Timeline

Sept 2025 - Feb 2026

Stack

ReactNext.jsTypeScriptSupabaseStripe
BuildIRL community platform case study hero image with device mockups
BuildIRL club page redesign

Club page redesign direction

BuildIRL membership plan page redesign

Membership plan selection redesign direction

About This Project

Worked as a founding engineer on a community-focused startup helping clubs manage memberships, collect dues, and grow sustainably. After onboarding, I became the primary engineer across several core product areas, contributing to frontend architecture, Next.js API work, Supabase-backed data flows, subscriptions, UX improvements, and product redesign efforts. I also led a large product audit and redesign initiative to make onboarding, membership selection, and club-facing flows clearer and more aligned with the product's mission.

Role

I worked in the messy, useful middle of engineering, product, and UX: shipping full-stack features, auditing the product experience, reworking core flows, and helping the team make pragmatic decisions while the product direction was still evolving.

What I Worked On

Built full-stack features across Next.js APIs, React UI, and Supabase architecture

Led a major UX/product audit across onboarding, club pages, and membership flows

Redesigned membership selection and club-facing pages to better support organizers

Contributed to subscription, dues, and membership-related product architecture

Prototyped new product directions quickly while keeping core systems maintainable

Investigated production email delivery issues with limited observability

Accomplishments

Helped the product better match the real-world needs of clubs and organizers

Reduced friction in important onboarding and membership flows

Balanced fast startup iteration with longer-term architecture decisions

Investigated and resolved production email delivery issues with limited observability

Challenges

The main challenge was moving quickly enough for an early-stage startup while still protecting the architecture around core systems like membership, dues, subscriptions, and onboarding.

What I Learned

This work reinforced how closely product design and engineering need to move together in early-stage products, especially when the user workflow is both operational and community-driven.