Colby Smith, web developer in Englewood, FL
Interfaces that wait well
Profile
I build websites and the software behind them. Lately that’s been a desktop app I designed, built and still run myself, which meant reverse-engineering a browser security system to make it work. I also do the technical SEO for a manufacturer in California. I handle the day-to-day stuff too, like support, licensing and keeping things running. If you have a project or a question, email me.
Shipped
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Cheddah
For collectors chasing limited drops, a cross-platform desktop app that automates restock monitoring and checkout, resilient against fast-changing upstreams.
It is a full cross-platform desktop application: a multi-process Electron system with a SvelteKit interface, a Node backend that streams live restock state over SSE, and Python services, versioned and shipped for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Its checkout runs on pure HTTP, reconstructed by reverse-engineering the protocol and re-implementing the client-side crypto byte for byte, then hardened to keep standing against commercial browser-integrity systems as the upstreams shift underneath it.
A resilience engine holds it steady under load with checkpointed retries, circuit breakers, and proxy rotation; an on-device assistant answers from inside the app; licensing runs on a Cloudflare Worker; and one person designed, built, and still runs all of it.
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Calpak USA
A brand and marketing site for Calpak USA, a California electronics design-and-manufacturing shop that carries hardware from concept to production.
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Lyra Lights
A product and brand site for Lyra Lights, an American LED maker, showing its grow lights, shop fixtures, and signal towers to spec buyers.
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PokePings
A landing site for PokePings, a Pokémon TCG restock-alert community: real-time store monitors and instant alerts, joined free through Discord.
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Superlative Solventless
A website to showcase the Superlative Solventless brand, with internal tools I built custom for them.
Superlative’s menu changes all the time, so the site is built around whatever they have in rotation. Every strain gets its own page with the cross, the flavor, and what it comes in.
I built them a private admin panel so they can run the site themselves. They can add or pull strains, move them around, change details, and upload label art. If something gets messed up, they can roll it back.
Only the Superlative team has access, and they log in with a code sent to their email instead of a password.
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Flyleaf
A tool for sending promotional emails to a mailing list. A business collects signups on its site, then writes and sends emails from its own admin panel.
People sign up on the business’s website and confirm by email, which builds the mailing list. Contacts the business already has can be imported from a spreadsheet.
To send an email, the business starts from a blank one or a ready-made announcement, sale, or newsletter, picks one of four styles, and edits the text right in a live preview. Products can be added from the catalog with their photo and details. Two subject lines can be tested on part of the list before the one with more opens goes to everyone.
Reports show deliveries, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. Every email carries an unsubscribe link and the business’s postal address, as US law requires.
Experience
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Founder & reverse-engineering engineer
Reverse-engineers commercial browser-integrity systems to the bytecode level.
- Reverse-engineered commercial browser-integrity stacks (PerimeterX, F5 Shape, Akamai, DataDome, Imperva), decompiling one to its ~200-opcode bytecode VM and two WebAssembly modules and rebuilding its sensor headless in an isolated JS realm.
- Reconstructed multi-service HTTP protocols from captures and re-implemented a client-side crypto scheme (AES, CMAC, format-preserving) byte-for-byte.
- Took the rebuilt sensor’s acceptance from 0% to a measured ~60–73% internally, then stress-tested it with a 33-agent adversarial review.
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Full-stack & systems engineer
Designs and ships a cross-platform desktop product solo, UI to distributed backend.
- Shipped a versioned (v14.4.6) cross-platform Electron app for Win/mac/Linux: a multi-process system spanning a SvelteKit UI, a Node HTTP/SSE backend, and Python services.
- Built a distributed resilience engine: a checkpointed, typed-error-driven retry state machine, circuit breakers, proxy-fleet rotation, and reactive session recovery.
- Wrote a custom hardened release pipeline: out-of-tree builds, V8-bytecode and asar sealing, an Ed25519-signed integrity manifest, and a perf-regression gate.
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Technical SEO & growth engineer
Turns organic search into revenue with technical SEO and full-stack builds.
- Led the technical SEO strategy for Calpak, credited with generating substantial government-contract lead flow.
- Engineered Calpak’s technical SEO end-to-end: JSON-LD schema, a dynamic 50-route sitemap, and AVIF/WebP Core Web Vitals tuning across 30+ pages.
- Drove Cheddah’s content SEO: ~40 keyword-targeted posts, a multi-section guide hub, and full OG/RSS schema on a Lighthouse-audited build.
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Community & operations
Runs a paid product’s entire non-engineering stack: community to trust & safety.
- Runs a paid Discord community end-to-end with custom admin tooling: onboarding, support, patch-notes, and drop alerts.
- Designed the support loop: in-app one-click diagnostics export feeding a real triage workflow, plus self-service machine-bound licensing.
- Stood up an internal observability and abuse-monitoring dashboard on Cloudflare: KPIs, health, license-abuse detection, and an IP watchlist.
Say hello.
Whether it is a project, a role, or just to compare notes, email reaches me fastest and I answer.
Englewood, FL · Solo operator
Reach out about consulting or a contract build, a role, a general question, a second opinion, or just to say hi.
Elsewhere: Cheddah · Calpak USA · Lyra Lights · PokePings · Superlative Solventless
Where I can help: web development, engineering, and solutions for businesses in Englewood, Venice, Port Charlotte, and Southwest Florida · reverse engineering and anti-bot systems · technical SEO and growth.
I read everything that comes in and reply myself. No forms, no auto-responders. Email is the fastest way, and I answer.