Resume

Richard Hess Principal UI/UX Architect • AI-Assisted & Spec-Driven UI Platforms

Spokane, WA • eswat2@gmail.com • https://www.linkedin.com/in/eswat • https://github.com/eswat2 • npx eswat2

Summary

Principal UI/UX Architect with 40+ years of front-end leadership — from expert systems UIs at Teknowledge (1985) to the graphics revolution at SGI, the browser wars at Netscape, and today's AI-assisted, spec-driven platforms. Spent the last decade at Cox Automotive defining portfolio-scale UI architecture across multiple product lines and teams. Most recently architecting MCP-based servers and apps and YAML-driven reactive UIs that let LLMs safely drive interfaces via action–state patterns instead of direct DOM control.

Skills

UI & Frontend: React, Vue, Lit, Stencil, Web Components, TypeScript, JavaScript (ES6+), SVG, Tailwind CSS, CSS Grid/Flexbox, Atomic Design, Design Systems, Material Design

Architecture & Patterns: Spec-driven UI, MCP-based tooling (FastMCP), action–state patterns, event bus (pub/sub), component libraries, design tokens, portfolio-level standards

AI & Integration: MCP servers and apps, LLM tool integration, semantic UI interaction (actions/states/events, not DOM), AI-assisted UI workflows, meta-data–driven behaviors

Backend & Tooling: Node.js, Express, GraphQL, REST APIs, MongoDB/Mongoose, pnpm/Yarn/NPM, Webpack, build pipelines, CLIs

Practices: Agile, technical leadership, mentoring, documentation, cross-functional collaboration, remote work, proof-of-concept development

Experience

Principal Architect, Portfolio UI/UX — Cox Automotive Inc. (Remote) | July 2019 – March 2026

Principal Architect, Portfolio UI/UX (March 2024 – March 2026)

• Designed and built an AI-assisted, spec-driven UI platform where YAML specifications generate fully reactive interfaces, live previews, and framework-specific web components, enabling LLMs and human developers to work from a single source of truth.
• Architected a custom MCP host server (built on FastMCP) and a suite of 5 MCP apps exposing UI capabilities, resources, and tools so LLMs can drive rich interfaces via declarative action–state patterns — without reliance on DOM structure.
• Created the Juris runtime as the core reactive engine, with a 20+ component library (design system, Material Design, layout, marketing) styled via Tailwind and backed by a unified SVG icon system of 18k+ icons.
• Implemented a client-side event bus (pub/sub) and meta-data–driven action–state models so both LLMs and users can trigger and observe UI state transitions in a robust, testable way.
• Defined portfolio-wide UI, web component, and design system standards; partnered with product, UX, and engineering leadership across multiple products and teams.

Senior Lead Architect, Portfolio UI/UX (February 2023 – March 2024)

• Guided portfolio-level UI architecture across multiple products, aligning teams on shared components, patterns, and design system usage.
• Drove adoption of web component–based architecture (Lit, Stencil) to increase reuse, standardize behavior, and decouple UI from specific frameworks.

Portfolio Technical Architect, UI/UX (IMS) (September 2020 – February 2023)

• Served as UI/UX technical lead for the IMS portfolio; introduced spec-driven approaches and componentized layouts that reduced duplication and improved feature delivery speed.

Lead Software Engineer / Lead Technical Architect, UI (July 2019 – September 2020)

• Built and maintained front-end features for customer-facing products; developed reusable UI components that evolved into portfolio-wide standards.

Principal UI Engineer — Skava (Remote, San Francisco, CA) | June 2018 – April 2019

• Contributed to a next-generation e-commerce platform; created an SVG-based Material Design icon component for the internal UI framework and refactored a reference store to adopt latest framework components.
• Authored Markdown documentation for the UI library and development environment; provided focused training for SI and in-house engineering teams.

Senior UI Software Engineer — Demandbase (Remote, San Francisco, CA) | July 2007 – January 2018

• Delivered UIs for enterprise SaaS products over 10+ years on React/Redux, AngularJS, and Adobe Flex/AIR as the stack evolved across the decade.
• Developed a programmatically generated SVG information funnel and a desktop AIR ticker-tape display — both requiring deep custom UI work with no off-the-shelf solutions.
• Built reusable React components, rapid prototype UIs, and mock API servers in Node to validate design and technology directions.

Senior UI Software Engineer — Sapias (San Francisco, CA) | April 2004 – July 2007

• Built a rich internet application in Adobe Flex for a vehicle tracking platform, including custom map rendering of vehicle locations before Google Maps was widely available.
• Designed custom dynamic dashboard dials and worked closely with designers to refine the full application UI.

Early Career Highlights (1985 – 2004)

A career built at the frontier of each computing era — from AI and expert systems through the graphics revolution, the rise of the web, and the browser wars:

• Senior Software Engineer — SGI (Silicon Graphics): Workstation UI and 3D graphics interfaces at the peak of SGI's influence in professional computing.
• Senior Software Engineer — Netscape: UI development during the browser wars — one of the most consequential periods in the history of software.
• Senior Software Engineer — Taligent: Apple/IBM's ambitious OO platform initiative — deep systems-level UI at the intersection of two industry giants.
• UI Technical Lead — Xaos Tools: Led UI for creative imaging software, blending technical depth with visual design sensibility.
• Senior Staff Engineer / UI Project Manager — Consilium: Dual engineering and project leadership role for manufacturing automation UI systems.
• UI Software Engineer — Measurex Automation Systems: Early industrial UI for process automation.
• Apprentice Knowledge Engineer — Teknowledge (1985): Where it all started — expert systems UIs, launching a lifelong focus on human–computer interaction.

Selected Projects

Action–State Reference Apps

• Implemented 4 reference apps (autos, funnel, sudoku, tinker) across 7 frameworks — Stencil, Lit, uCE, Svelte, Solid, Preact, and Vue — each following the same action–state interaction pattern and a shared custom Tailwind plugin, producing nearly identical output across all implementations.
• Validated that action–state is a genuinely framework-agnostic pattern — directly informing the architectural foundation for MCP-driven UI. Selected implementations at github.com/eswat2.

Pro Bono & Personal

• Farmers Market web app (Columbus, IN) — Node/Express/Bootstrap/MongoDB, vendor signup and approval workflows (pro bono, 2014–2018).
• CLI business card: npx eswat2. More at github.com/eswat2.

Education

BS, Mechanical Engineering (Cum Laude) Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN