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Summary

Software Developer. Shifted from fifteen years in customer service to a career in tech via Dev Academy. Server-side gives structure to the part of my brain that needs it; the front end gives an outlet to my artistic side. I found the home I did not know I was looking for. Neurodivergent, and I've learned this is not a weakness but is in fact a strength I can use. It comes with empathy, active listening, and years of practice giving and receiving feedback, pairing on hard problems, and working through conflict without making it personal. I plan and doc before I write code, gate accessibility up front (WCAG 2.2 AA) on my own projects, and start Dev Academy's AI Launchpad on 27 July 2026.

Experience

Dev Academy Aotearoa

Auckland, NZ (Hybrid) Apr 2026 to Present

AI Launchpad — Software Developer Jul 2026 to Present

  • Building a PR review agent for launchpad-26/buzz toward one of its two required merge approvals; hardened the containment boundary against prompt injection with a mutation-testing harness, and fact-checked the research it was proposed on against primary sources.
  • Took on Project Manager for the 3-person Buzz team: triaging the GitHub issue queue, reviewing PRs as they land, and making merge calls from what other reviewers found.
  • Built Loom, a zero-dependency Python dashboard and Claude Code skill tracking a fleet of coding agents across git worktrees; audited my own build against reality and closed all 32 findings.
  • Published a case study after finding four of seven Claude Code hooks I had written — including the only security hook I had — had never fired once; documented the fix and two live defects rather than hide them.

Software Developer Apr 2026 to Jul 2026

  • Shipped three solo projects: Moonlit Library (deployed on Render), Atlas (accessibility-first concept library reworked from the bootcamp brief), and vixenz.dev (portfolio site, Astro on Cloudflare Pages).
  • Accessibility-first on every project: WCAG 2.2 AA audits before merge, keyboard navigation + ARIA + focus management wired in from the start. Gave cohort lightning talk on treating accessibility as a design decision, not decoration.
  • Learned to work with Claude Code as a coding partner and code reviewer: how to direct AI, question its output, verify what it ships.
  • Passed all 11 assessment credentials, several ahead of deadline.

Bachcare, The Holiday Home Company

Auckland, NZ (Hybrid) Dec 2021 to Apr 2026

Feedback and Owner Operations Specialist promoted through Booking Management and Reservations Specialist

  • Owned guest feedback resolution across a 4.5-year progression, sitting between guest needs and owner constraints to land solutions that worked for both.
  • Trained new team members on feedback methodology: what the role actually involves, and how to stay empathetic to guests who are frustrated.
  • Supported the owner relations team day to day: maintenance escalations, guidance for owners, general problem-solving.
  • Earlier in tenure: managed in-stay needs (maintenance, changes, cancellations) and complex bookings; ran pre-stay support and property matching.

TIC Group

Auckland, NZ (On-site) May 2018 to Dec 2021

Claims Coordinator

  • Ran the warranty claims lifecycle for JB Hi-Fi's faulty products: raised claims, handled supplier paperwork, saw them through to settlement.
  • Owned salvage operations for TIC's NZ division: ordered containers, built picklists, coordinated pickup and shipping to the Auckland port for hardware bound for AU parts resale.

JB Hi-Fi

Auckland (Sylvia Park, then Botany) Nov 2010 to May 2018

Counter Coordinator promoted from Customer Service Representative, 4.5 years as Coordinator

  • Led the counter team of 5 for 4.5 years at Botany: schedules, one-on-ones, escalation liaison between team and management.
  • Joined Sylvia Park on opening day (2010) and transferred to Botany in 2012; travelled to Christchurch for a week to help open that store on the strength of Sylvia Park launch experience.
  • Counter operations throughout: sales, POS, cash handling, finance applications, returns coordination with distributors.

Projects

  • Moonlit Library

    moonlit-library.onrender.com github.com/serina-mcfall/moonlit-library

    Stack: Express + Knex + SQLite on the server and React + Vite on the client

    Role: Solo build

    Outcome: Dev Academy challenge, earned three credentials. Personal library designed for how I read, deployed on Render.

  • Atlas: a visual concept library

    vixenz.dev/work/atlas github.com/serina-mcfall/atlas

    Stack: React + Vite + TypeScript, Express + Knex + SQLite, MDX

    Role: Solo build (in progress)

    Outcome: Reworked a Dev Academy art-gallery brief into an accessibility-first concept library with kind-based routing. WCAG 2.2 AA gated in Playwright tests. Four concept sheets and a Terminal reference sheet shipped.

  • Kiwicom: a developer project discovery hub

    not yet deployed github.com/Oscar-Wakefield-Ngahuru-2026/Kiwicom

    Stack: React + Vite + TS + Tailwind, Node + Express + TS, PostgreSQL (Supabase auth), Knex

    Role: My role in this project was the git keeper of a 4-person team. I reviewed every PR, ran merges to Dev, and Resolved conflicts when they came about (luckily there were not many). 79 commits by the end, highest on the team.

    Outcome: Final Dev Academy group project. Community hub for devs to find open-source projects: GitHub pulls filtered by language/topic, bookmarks, profiles, create-project. Editorial design system (Lexend + JetBrains Mono, cream and deep-sky) from my aesthetic. Claude-powered summaries + deployment planned but did not land in time.

  • Realmstack

    not deployed private repo, available on request

    Stack: Cloudflare Workers (planning to bind D1, KV, R2, Queues), TypeScript. Rest of the stack still to be decided.

    Role: Co-built with my husband. Currently in doc-led planning phase.

    Outcome: Long-term worldbuilding platform for writers, D&D masters, and game writers. Doc-led planning phase: north-star vision, user flows, and multi-source encryption architecture research (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Kimi, Deepseek) locked before implementation. Client-side E2EE is the technical anchor.

  • Buzz: PR review agent

    vixenz.dev/lab/buzz github.com/launchpad-26/buzz

    Stack: Rust (Buzz itself), Python (review-agent tooling), GitHub Actions

    Role: Built the review agent within a 3-person Dev Academy Launchpad cohort team; now Project Manager.

    Outcome: Building toward one of Buzz's two required PR approvals. Hardened the review pipeline against prompt injection with a containment boundary and a mutation-testing harness; fact-checked the research it was proposed on against primary sources.

  • Loom

    vixenz.dev/lab/loom github.com/serina-mcfall/loom

    Stack: Python, standard library only, zero dependencies

    Role: Solo build

    Outcome: Local dashboard and Claude Code skill tracking a fleet of coding agents across git worktrees. Self-audited against the finished build, closed all 32 findings, 283 tests, CI across four Python versions.

  • serina-skills

    github.com/serina-mcfall/serina-skills

    Stack: Shell, Claude Code plugin/skill format

    Role: Solo build, actively maintained

    Outcome: An 11-skill Claude Code plugin marketplace: planning, research, retrospectives, and a 6-stage adversarial code-review pipeline. In active use across my own projects.

Skills

Core
  • React
  • TypeScript / JavaScript
  • Node + Express
  • Knex + SQL (SQLite, Postgres)
  • HTML + CSS
  • WCAG 2.2 AA + W3C APG patterns
  • Playwright + axe-core
  • Git
  • Astro
  • Vite + Vitest
Familiar
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Cloudflare Pages
  • Supabase (Auth + hosted Postgres)
  • MDX
Learning next
  • Cloudflare Workers (D1, KV, R2, Queues)
  • Agentic workflows
  • Anthropic + OpenAI APIs
  • Client-side E2EE

Education

Dev Academy Aotearoa

Auckland, NZ 2026

Full-stack web development bootcamp + AI Launchpad.

Emily Carr University of Art and Design

Vancouver, BC, Canada 1998 to 1999

Foundations Program (1 year, not completed).

North Delta Senior Secondary

North Delta, BC, Canada Graduated 1998

Interests

Painting, digital art, Diamond dots, resin. Writing and worldbuilding, D&D, Magic the Gathering. Gaming (Where Winds Meet), reading, Chinese and Korean Dramas.

References

Available upon request.