Derrick Koo
Front-End Software Engineer
Intro
Hello! I’m a front-end-focused software engineer based just outside sunny Denver, CO. I’m currently working full-time as a software engineer at Automattic, where I build products for small-to-medium-sized publishers as part of the Newspack team.
I strive for accessibility, performance, clean code, smooth user experiences, and elegant application architecture. If you’d like to talk about code or potential projects, please get in touch.
Skills
WordPress
WordPress is one of the most powerful and extensible open-source content management systems on the planet. I’ve been building WordPress sites of all shapes and sizes for well over a decade.
JavaScript
JavaScript is my bread, butter, and jam. I’ve worked on large-scale projects using both vanilla JS and frameworks like React, React Native, Ionic, Angular, Meteor and Backbone, and am always hungry to learn more.
HTML, CSS
I’ve been building websites for fun, education, and career since the days of GeoCities and MySpace. I discovered HTML and CSS while noodling with custom blogs in college, and have been hooked ever since.
Lore
I was born and raised in New York, and bounced around Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens for most of my adult life.
Prior to joining Automattic, I was a Lead Front-End Engineer at 10up for four years, where I specialized in JavaScript and mobile application development, managed project engineering teams, and built products for clients large and small.
Before that, I was a member of the Editorial Production team for seven years at The New Yorker, where I managed editorial workflows and built tools to bring the magazine’s words to print and digital forms.
In a previous life, I majored in history at Columbia and earned a master’s degree in journalism at NYU. I strongly considered pursuing a career writing and reporting in the city before answering my true calling to write code in the mountains.