Leonard Souza is a wicked interaction engineer, teacher and storyteller. Struggles to conceal the horn growing from the middle of his forehead.
Join the adventure
Every couple weeks I send out a newsletter sharing my adventures in coding, design, and writing, and how to combine them into remarkable experiences.
“Leonard is up to any challenge; he gets it done.”Garth Braithwaite, Senior Computer Science Lead at
Wait, who are you?
A creative who codes. A coder who creates. A writer. A lively problem-solver with logic bending analytical skills and clever design thinking. Leonard Souza is a life-long learner helplessly drawn to the sublime space where design, technology and narrative intersect. He’s written a fun tale, hosts a writing podcast, builds killer software, and teaches UX, design and coding. His words reach 30,000+ people a month.
Leonard has had the pleasure of working with a notable roster of Fortune 500 clients including Intel, Boeing, FedEx, Adobe, Bank of America and more.
When not bashing his head against some ridiculous design challenge, Leonard enjoys literature, hiking, body-hacking, and spending time with his wife and two children.
“Rare are those who code and design. Rarer still are those who excel at both. Leonard is that fabled unicorn. He brings tremendous value to any team, large or small.”Dan Abramov, Creator of Redux, React Engineer at
What I do
- I create apps used by millions of badass customers.
- I lead sustainable and high impact teams.
- I teach developers how to build remarkable software.
- I teach designers how to code.
- I help writers master the written word.
- I write killer fiction under the name J.S. Leonard.
- I’m bent on pushing the boundaries of interaction design.
Myers-Briggs Type
INTJ
Independent, original, analytical, and determined. Have an exceptional ability to turn theories into solid plans of action. Highly value knowledge, competence, and structure. Driven to derive meaning from their visions. Long-range thinkers. Have very high standards for their performance, and the performance of others. Natural leaders, but will follow if they trust existing leaders.
Top 5
Gallup Strengths
61.2
19
Miscellaneous Interests
Enterprise Coding Skills
Ad Agency Design Talent
I take projects from concepts to comps to code and anywhere between.
NOTE: All samples cannot be made public. If you are interested more in a particular client, please contact me.
“Leonard perseveres. The most daunting interaction design task is no match.”Dan Coming, Software Engineer at
Programming
I am a computer science polyglot with over twenty year's experience. I am well-versed in many object-oriented and functional languages (in order of most experience).
- Javascript
- Ruby/Rails
- iOS/Objective-C/Swift
- Java
- SQL/NoSQL/ElasticSearch/Redis
- OpenGL/Shaders
- C#
- C/C++
- Rust
- Elm
- Actionscript (Deprecated)
I am a design pattern junky, and while I love rolling my own code, I embrace brilliant framework creators and service providers. Here are a few libraries, patterns, and services I use most.
- React/React Native
- Redux/Thunk/Sagas
- Babel/ES6
- Node.js
- Express
- Socket.io
- Webpack
- AWS/Heroku
- Electron
- GraphQL/Relay
- Unity 3D
- Three.js
- Kinect
- Arduino/Raspberry Pi
- Qt/QML
- Cinder / Boost
- Processing / OpenFrameworks / OpenCV
- Object-Oriented Programming
- Clear Separation of Concerns (MVC)
- Functional Programing (lodash/RX)
- Reusability and Dont-Repeat-Yourself (DRY)
- TDD
- Agile/Kanban
- <insert web framework here, i.e. Angular, Backbone, Ember, etc.>
And tooling
- Sublime Text
- Atom.io
- Xcode
- VIM
- iTerm
- Git
Design/UX
I am a Fine Art graduate who studied painting and have relentlessly developed the ability to create visual experiences. I’ve worked hard to translate these skills to interaction design.
- HTML5/CSS3/SVG
- BEM/SASS/PostCSS
- Responsive, Mobile-First Design
- Wireframe/Prototypes
- User Testing
- QA
As a software engineer I tend to easily learn new tools and relish that process. Here are a few I use often:
- Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere)
- Sketch
- Luxology Modo
- Scrivener
- Ableton Live