# inFrequently Asked Questions

As Jared White, I am a person. 👋😃 As Whitefusion, I am a freelance contractor and work directly with individuals, small business, larger agencies, and organizations of all shapes and sizes. As it says on the home page, I’ve been a designer, developer, and content producer forever a long time, and I’m really rather good at it. ⭐️

I do my best work when I bring something to the table that’s not already there. See below for an in-depth list of my technical skills, but I consider my best skill overall to be that I really care about your success. If you’re asking me to do something I don’t think will help you in the long run, I’ll be honest about that. And I’ll always look for ways to make sure you are putting your best foot forward, getting an incredible lot done with merely modest resources. 🫡

Expounding on what I say in my CV, I’m a senior-level web developer with a multi-faceted skillset. I’m a self-starter with a comprehensive background in publishing & media production. As a framework-grade software architect, I have deep expertise in open source governance, public documentation, and coordinating effort between disparate remote teams and contributors.

Ruby & JavaScript Application Architecture

My goal in every project is to synthesize workable plans for building prototypes, MVPs, and stable production deployments while considering time & budgetary constraints. I pride myself in getting more done with less. This is why I gravitate towards languages, libraries, and frameworks which don’t require burdensome configuration and maintenance over time. If I build websites & software which can run virtually unattended for long period of time, faithfully serving users’ needs, I consider it a job well done.

Design System & Feature Coherence

I always strive to provide thoughtful design expertise, whether as an initiator or working alongside dedicated designers. It is vital to ensure alignment for the user experience and the way features are developed & deployed. I am a stickler for authoring semantic & accessible HTML and modular, intrinsic CSS as part of design systems, page layouts, and form UI. This isn’t just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because measure twice, cut once is a time-honored tradition of quality craftsmanship.

Baseline Web APIs, Web Components, & Hypermedia

A hallmark of modern web development is staying laser-focused on the well-managed, incremental development of the native web platform itself. The oft-cited go with the grain of the web is development philosophy which advocates for writing code which adheres to open-standard APIs & protocols as much as possible. I am constantly looking for ways to build for the web using the web itself as the primary inspiration for the tools and techniques I write or obtain, and I try to avoid frameworks, services, and hosting companies which arrogantly believe they “know better” (which has been a thorn in the side of meaningful advances in software quality and education for far too long).

Open Source Leadership

It is the true highlight of my career that I have been able to steward the ongoing development and many releases of the Bridgetown web framework over the past six years. Written primarily in Ruby, it has helped many people become better web developers, learning about Ruby & JavaScript best practices, while providing a smooth onramp to indie blogging & publishing in a myriad of ways. Bridgetown has also offered a number of developers their first taste of what it’s like to contribute to open source. Starting from this place of success, I maintain a number of other open source projects and am currently developing a competitor to Hotwire Turbo which integrates beautifully with the wildly-popular htmx library.

I come from a long line of technology experts. My great-grandfather, William W. Whyte, Esq. (God rest his soul) owned and operated the celebrated Ye Olde Computre Shoppe nestled in the charming town of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. People would come from near and far to purchase his handmade computer systems carved out of yew wood. 💷

So…none of that is actually true but it makes for a good story…doncha think? 😄

(If you’re really curious, some recommended listening: Fresh Fusion podcast episode “The Year Was 1994”)

This is always a challenge to talk about because every project and engagement is so different. But I’ll give you some ballparks.

• Most of my engagements land somewhere around 🟢 $2000-4000 a month. Sometimes projects will proceed past a particular launch date and afterwards there’s a maintenance/infrequent updates phase which is less than that.
• For intense work on projects with larger scopes, 🟣 $5000-7000 a month is a more typical range to aim for.
• Sometimes I do consulting in short bursts to provide educational training or help teams get out of a logjam. In those instances, we might pair together for a day or two. 🔵 $500-1000 is a good place to start planning for that.

One thing you should know about me is I always try to tailor the work I do to the budgetary constraints you have. I don’t waltz in with a precise idea of what I think you need. ☎️ We can have a two-way conversation and, based on what you’re trying to do and the resources you have, I will map out a path forward which fills us both with confidence.

Imagine if someone on Instagram could simply follow your TikTok account, and when you posted a video there, that person on Instagram could watch your video, like it, and comment on it just as if it had been posted on Instagram.

Or imagine if there wasn’t just one “Instagram”, there were hundreds or thousands. Your local community could have its own Instagram. A media company could have its own Instagram for all of its journalists. Yet they could all still communicate with each other…you wouldn’t have to join their platform if you didn’t want to. You could engage with them from the comfort of your own.

That’s the power of the Fediverse. Using a common protocol called ActivityPub, many thousands of servers (called “instances”) can all be running similar or even different software, yet accounts on any of them can follow and interact with accounts across the shared network. I believe this is the future of the web, and I’m very motivated to help you join, engage, and grow your presence in this exciting new form of social media.

Follow me on Mastodon—if you don’t have an account yet, reach out and I’ll walk you through a quick setup process!

What’s weird about it? I can assure you: no AI was harmed in the making of this Web site! 😂

But OK, you may have heard something about how I don’t utilize Generative AI services in the conduct of my work. And you’d be right! Learn about Whitefusion’s AI ethics policy here.

In addition to my professional work as a software developer and open source advocate, I write several newsletters & blogs in technology and creative spaces.

• That HTML Blog
• Fullstack Ruby
• The Internet Review
• Cycles Hyped No More
• Vibe Coded Podcast
• Fresh Fusion Podcast

And you can discover more about me personally, along with travel essays, photography, and music, by visiting jaredwhite.com