Rebuilding my site as a builder's home base

The old version of this site did the thing most portfolio sites do: a giant hero, a wall of tech logos, a grid of project cards with hover overlays, and an "About" tab that was really a resume in a card. It looked fine. It said almost nothing about me.

This time I started from a different question: what does it feel like to work with or hire this engineer? Not "what can you do" — that's a list. "What does it feel like" is a posture. It's the difference between a brochure and a tool.

What I kept

A few things from the template era are worth keeping:

• A clear, fast first screen. Recruiters spend seconds, not minutes.
• Real project depth. A card with a gradient and two tags is a teaser, not a story.
• One accent color, used with intent. Not a rainbow of category colors.

What I cut

The things that made the old site feel generic:

• The floating blurred orbs and parallax flourishes. Decoration that pretended to be design.
• The "8+ years / 50+ projects / 12+ technologies" stat row. Empty numbers feel confident and communicate nothing.
• The tech logo wall. A grid of proficiency dots doesn't tell you how I think; it tells you I once installed twelve libraries.
• Letter-by-letter hero animations. Pretty the first time, in the way the second time.

What I'm aiming for instead

A site that reads like a tool a builder keeps open, not a flyer someone hands you. Dense but scannable. Monospace where it earns its place — dates, tags, status, keyboard hints. Motion only where it explains something. One accent for links and status, and otherwise contrast does the work.

The homepage should answer the recruiter's question in one breath: who I am, what I'm open to, what I'm working on right now. The project pages should answer the developer's question: how does this person approach a problem? The about page should feel like a person, not a CV.

The honest part

This is a living site now, not a launch. The projects have real narratives but I'll keep sharpening them. The "Now" section is meant to drift as I actually drift. The blog is where the longer thinking lives, and I want it to be a first-class part of the site rather than an afterthought tab.

If something here resonates, that's the whole point. Let's talk.