SimaPro
SimaPro is a leading solution for LCA (Life Cycle Assessment), and I was fortunate to contribute to its web platform over the course of seven years.
My Experience with SimaPro
Before the Journey
Upon joining PRé sustainability, the developer of SimaPro, our team was small and agile, consisting of two back-end developers and two QA engineers. Initially, I focused on implementing minor features on the existing codebase, leveraging knockout.js and angular.js.
Immersion in Life Cycle Assessment and Codebase
As I delved deeper into the intricacies of LCA and the codebase itself, I prioritized clarity, usability, and business alignment. I worked to empower users from diverse backgrounds, including supply-chain managers, LCA experts, and occasional users.
Key Achievements
I was part of several notable achievements, including:
- Developing a feature allowing users to input dynamic data into their LC models and compare different datasets from suppliers.
- Collaborating with our database engineer to develop a solution for generating reports from these datasets, enhancing the reusability of models.
- Spearheading the transition to React and isolating the legacy app, enabling us to deliver new features in React without compromising existing functionality.
Growth and New Challenges
With the team’s growth, I shifted focus to designing GUI components, adhering to TDD principles and swiftly addressing issues. I played a key role in onboarding new developers, supporting them in building both generic and specialized components.
Product Design and Documentation
In collaboration with a junior developer, we took on product design responsibilities, revisiting the visual modeling experience and refining the product to excel in its core function. I also documented the design system for our custom components, adhering to atomic design and gradual release principles, empowering more developers to seamlessly integrate new features into SimaPro.
