I build &
modernize
complex webplatforms
Senior engineering, technical leadership, and product strategy for teams that need experienced hands without adding a full-time hire.
WordPress, Next.js, Astro, TypeScript, React, Drupal, Sanity, PHP, Node.js, Platform migrations, Headless CMS
15+ yrs
Where I'm useful
Platform modernization & migrations
Untangling aging CMSs, consolidating platforms, migrating content, rebuilding frontends, and getting difficult web systems onto maintainable foundations.
Senior engineering
Hands-on development for WordPress, React, Next.js, Astro, TypeScript, and headless architectures. Embedded with your team or developing your project.
Fractional technical leadership
Architecture, technical planning, system audits, vendor and team coordination, code review, platform ownership, and getting ambiguous projects moving.
Product & experience design
Product discovery, user interviews, UX and interface design, prototyping, and analytics. Defining the problem and shaping the experience before building it.
Selected work
Proposal builder →
A client's Lovable prototype, taken to production with auth, a database, and a review-and-confirm workflow.
React · TypeScript · Supabase · Vercel · Resend · Lovable
Drupal → WordPress →
Moving 25,000 posts off an end-of-life Drupal platform.
Drupal · WordPress · Migration · AI-assisted tooling · WP-CLI · MySQL
Vacation rental platform →
Discovery, design, and front-end build for a high-volume booking site
Next.js · TypeScript · Drupal · Salesforce · UX/UI
The lab
Small tools, prototypes, experiments, and technical notes. I use downtime to build things, explore new approaches, and test ideas before they show up in client work.
Vinyl Scan
A local-first app for photographing, identifying, grading, and triaging a record collection, built around buying whole collections at estate sales.
Trimm
A focused desktop app for trimming audio loops into clean samples, built for Teenage Engineering's EP series.
The whole problem, not just the code
I’m Colin O’Brien, a senior web engineer and technical lead based in Colorado.
I’ve spent more than 20 years across development, product, UX, publishing, and digital strategy. I led engineering and product for Outside’s publishing platform and later co-founded Wild Roar, a small digital studio.
I’m a builder at heart, but I start with the problem, not the stack: who’s using this, what they need, and what’s getting in the way. Sometimes the answer is a rebuild. Just as often it’s a clearer structure, a simpler interface, or a better call about what not to build.
I work directly with companies and partner with agencies that need senior engineering capacity, from fractional technical leadership and contract engineering to migrations, platform modernization, and select web builds.
Have a
complicated web problem?
I'm available for fractional technical leadership, senior contract engineering, migrations, platform modernization, and select web builds.