Adam Pena

Senior Front-End Engineer

adamjpena.comlinkedin.com/in/adamjpena

EXPERIENCE

Senior Front-End Engineer | Cindersoft | United States

Feb 2025 - Present
  • Led technical direction and delivery of SaaS platforms in React/Next.js, Node.js, and Python, spanning shared UI libraries, CI/CD pipelines, and performance optimization.
  • Built AWS-backed data sourcing workflows for LLM retrieval, evaluation, and dataset generation for startups backed by OpenAI, Nvidia, and YC.

Lead Front-End Engineer | Cash App (Square) | New York City

Oct 2022 - Feb 2025
  • Architected and launched a cross-team marketing experimentation platform for a 60M-user financial app, improving conversion rates by 5% through faster A/B test deployment, real-time metrics, and custom React/Node.js tooling.
  • Led full stack performance initiatives, implementing server-side optimizations and front-end tuning to cut page load times by 70% and boost Lighthouse scores by 60+ points.
  • Designed and deployed a headless CMS backed by custom API routes and edge functions, powering dynamic content and localization across 10+ regions without engineering support.
  • Built and enforced CI pipelines for accessibility testing across marketing and product surfaces, achieving WCAG 2.1 compliance and integrating checks into the deployment process.

Senior Front-End Engineer | Plaid | San Francisco

Aug 2019 - Sep 2022
  • Built and maintained shared UI systems and API interfaces across Plaid’s products, used by 1 in 4 U.S. adults, reducing UI bugs by 30% and enabling faster product rollouts.
  • Led development of a modular CMS with React, Node.js, and GraphQL, cutting content release time by 60% and enabling self-serve publishing across surfaces.
  • Led accessibility audits and full stack remediation across web surfaces, collaborating with backend teams to address semantic data issues and reduce support tickets by 75%.
  • Directed Plaid’s engineering apprenticeship program, overseeing mentorship, technical curriculum (React/Node), and logistics; achieved 100% conversion across 20+ apprentices.

Software Engineer | Visibly | Chicago

Sep 2017 - Jul 2019
  • Improved onboarding workflows and signup flows, increasing user retention by 25% and boosting first-time purchase conversion by 4%.
  • Developed rich, interactive UI components for a proprietary online vision test, contributing to a smoother and more accurate test-taking experience.

Front-End Engineer | ParkWhiz | Chicago

Mar 2016 - Sep 2017
  • Redesigned and optimized the core parking widget, increasing performance by 40% and improving booking funnel completion rates.
  • Built and shipped a new B2B platform for enterprise partners, reducing client expense report processing time by 35%.

SKILLS

Frontend: JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Next.js, HTML5, CSS3, Tailwind, D3.js

Backend: Node.js, Express, Python, Django, Java, GraphQL, REST APIs

Infra: Docker, CI/CD, Serverless, Microservices, AWS, GCP

Data/AI: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, LangChain, RAG, LLM Eval, Whisper

EDUCATION

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Champaign, IL

B.S. Community Health • Dean's List

LANGUAGE

English (native), Spanish (fluent), Japanese (conversational)