Full-stack engineer and instructorBringing clarity to complex systemsIn code, workflows, and teamsBuilding AI-native, end to endAtlanta, Georgia

The brief

James Williams, LLC is a family-owned Metro Atlanta general contractor with thirty-plus years behind it. The job was a site to match the work: as considered and reliable as the builds Jim and his team deliver.

The after

The redesign is a full marketing site. A hero with clear calls to action, then a credibility band up front: thirty-plus years, family-owned, service area. A services grid opens into a fuller services section, and a draw-schedule explainer walks clients through how construction financing actually pays out, which most contractor sites leave out. Testimonials, the founder's story, qualifications, and a portfolio grid close it out.

Why it leads

This one covers the whole arc of the work: information architecture, content strategy, a small design system, and the build. Drag the divider above to compare.

The brief

Videodrome is an Atlanta video store with a catalog streaming cannot match: about thirty thousand titles, shelved by director and country instead of by algorithm. The job was a web presence worthy of the shelves and an inventory the staff could actually run.

The hard part

The data lived in a legacy Clarion desktop database, a closed decades-old system never meant to touch the web. The storefront was the easy part. The real work was getting thirty thousand records out without losing the hand-built organization that makes the store what it is, then modeling them in PostgreSQL to support search by title, director, and country, plus live rental availability.

The build

The front end is a TypeScript and Next.js storefront over that Postgres catalog: fast search, filters for availability and genre, and film cards showing poster, director, year, and copies left. One data model feeds both the site and the point-of-sale, so the counter and the web read from a single source of truth instead of two systems drifting apart. The look is editorial and dark, on a small design system that keeps new sections consistent as the catalog grows.

Where it stands

The design and data model are built. The rebuild is in development, not yet live on the store's domain. The screens here are from the working design. Next is the migration tooling and the staff-facing inventory views.

The brief

Bon House is a DIY music venue in Decatur: a 150-cap room with a PBR sponsorship and a growing crowd. It needed a site with the energy of the room, not another quiet minimal template.

The build

The site is built on a collage aesthetic that matches the space: brush display type, a torn-paper photo hero, and one grid that holds the whole operation, the bands, the venue, the studio, the label. It runs on WordPress, so the crew can post shows and update sections themselves without the layout drifting.

Why it belongs here

Next to the contractor and video-store work, Bon House shows range: a completely different look over the same system discipline. It is a client engagement, so the site is shown as built, with individual band photos kept to where the agreements allow.

The brief

For six years Leif taught the full-stack bootcamp, the 2U/edX curriculum delivered in partnership with universities like Georgia Tech, in cohorts of thirty to fifty. The more interesting job came later: curriculum engineer on a full overhaul of that program, treating the curriculum as a system with inputs, feedback, and outcomes rather than a fixed syllabus.

The overhaul

It modernized the whole stack a student moves through: AI and LangChain added, core material moved to TypeScript, CI/CD and test-driven development made habits instead of topics, and a Python module built in. The goal was a path from day one to a shippable project that stays tested, current, and repeatable across instructors and cohorts.

The scale

The curriculum ran through the 2U/edX bootcamp network, taught in partnership with universities like SMU and UPenn, so the same work reached programs well beyond a single campus. That reach is the point: not one classroom but a learning system, built to keep working when many different people run it. The curriculum belongs to 2U/edX and its university partners. Leif was one of a small team doing the engineering that made it run at scale.

The throughline

It started with video games. In college, building them was the door into software engineering, and film and music have run alongside the code ever since. One practice across media: Leif writes, shoots, edits, and scores the same way he builds software, with the same instinct for structure and pacing.

Film

Two shorts of his own: "The Traveller" (co-writer, cinematographer, composer, editor) and "Lights Among Us" (co-writer, 1st AD and set support, editor). Around them, on-set craft on other people's projects: 1st AD, PA, boom operator, camera operator, and grip, including the feature "Content" (grip, camera and electrical, 2019). Atlanta Film Society PA Academy trained, 2025.

Games

Punchy Fox was the studio attempt, built with his longtime collaborator Tyler Aldridge, and it reached a playable prototype. The jams around it taught scope and finish: "Is Anyone Out There?" did well at its jam, and "La Bomba," a Bomberman-style clone, got to a playable build.

Score

Original score and theme music for the "Holed Up" podcast series, fifty episodes across 2024 and 2025, plus scores for his own films.

Why it belongs here

For Leif, filmmaking, game development, music production, and software are one pursuit, and creativity runs through all of it. The instincts hold across every one: structure, pacing, and the discipline of finishing. It also points to a wider body of work: experimental music, digital art, and film. Clips, game footage, and score samples are available on request.

The shape of it

A decade of client work, shipped and maintained. The point is breadth and reliability: a lot of it went live and stayed live.

Agency: 40AU

At 40AU Leif maintained the brand sites for four 4Top Hospitality concepts, an employee-owned restaurant group across the Southeast: etc., etch, Amerigo, and Char in Nashville. All four are still live, largely as he set them up. Alongside them ran work that stays credit-only: the home site for Vanderbilt's "My Day" diabetes-tracking app, a stint on the NARUS "Compassion" nursing dashboard, brand work through Fullscreen Direct (Megadeth, Eric Church, Kid Rock, Linkin Park), and bank web forms and stored procedures. Healthcare and bank work he can name but not show, under NDA.

Platform: Horton Group

With Horton Group's senior developer, Leif built a reusable templated app on Angular and KeystoneJS, designed so the team could re-skin it for new clients instead of rebuilding each time. The real decisions were the seams: what to make configurable, what to keep fixed, how one codebase serves many client skins without forking. He also handled remediation, pulling a bloated WordPress site (Sisters on the Fly) back to something maintainable.

Independent

Freelance builds Leif designed, built, onboarded, and maintained: TNPRCV, Rebuilding Together Nashville, Foundation Christian Academy, and Sombra Mexican Kitchen. Small engagements, full ownership, still standing.