Past Projects

A small portfolio of my previous web development projects, case studies, and handpicked examples of my work.

Virgin Atlantic
& Holidays
Lead engineer on this massive replatforming project, unifying twelve disparate applications under a new headless architecture with React and Next.js.
Nando’s
Senior software engineer on the UK and Ireland replatform, migrating Nando’s customer‑facing websites from legacy Drupal to a unified headless platform built with Next.js and Storyblok, with a focus on performance, accessibility, and SEO.
John Lewis
& Partners
Senior developer as part of team 'Findability'. Led the digital implementation of the 'John Lewis & Partners' rebrand alongside new feature development, user journey optimisation, and performance improvements.
The World Economic
Forum
Senior JavaScript developer heavily involved in delivering a React‑based rebuild of the World Economic Forum online platforms, including leading the introduction of new user features.
Selfridges
Lead front‑end developer within the e‑commerce Customer Experience team. Leading the delivery of new features, as well as considerable refactoring and improvement of the existing platform's performance.
Polestar
Senior developer working on this highly animated, interactive website and automotive configurators for Polestar, once Volvo's fledgling go‑faster brand, now turned EV company. Built with Gatsby, React, and TypeScript.
Boohoo
Group
The migration of several individual Group brand e‑commerce websites onto a newly developed, unified, React‑based platform. Enabling shared functionality and customisable components.
Lotus
Cars
The automotive e‑commerce website, configurator, and online marketing channels for the much‑loved British sports car manufacturer: Lotus. Built on top of WordPress with HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.
IMG
Licensing
An all‑new identity and website. Making careful use of their extensive library of client imagery, this was a ground‑up build using Gatsby, Contentful, and Netlify for this world‑leading licensing company.
Wreel
Agency
Technical director and lead developer for this digital‑centric design agency. A vibrant, animated, and engaging website developed using Gatsby, React, TypeScript, and Contentful.
LEGO
Senior developer producing an all‑new e‑commerce platform with React. Designed to handle high traffic volumes and support multi‑language and multiple currencies.
Plex.tv
A complex, web‑based media library and player built in React that allows users to access their self‑hosted media from anywhere and on virtually any device with a web browser and an internet connection.
Condé Nast
Style.com
A fashion and technology‑led e‑commerce marketplace by Condé Nast. Built in Clojure (and ClojureScript), its key feature was tight integration with the wider Condé Nast publications.
HSBC Corporate
Banking
Lead UI developer on a set of digital transformation projects at the world's local bank. Includes the ground‑up rebuild of their commercial banking application using Node.js and React.
MOSCOT
Eyewear
Senior front‑end developer responsible for producing a library of static components and page templates for integration into this Shopify website and e‑commerce platform.
BBC
Future Media
The sole UI developer for the award‑winning fourth major version of the British Broadcasting Corporation homepage and the first step in a thorough new online identity and look and feel.
Red
Central
A bold, media‑led website to bring the passion and personality of this digital design studio online. Built using Gatsby, TypeScript, GraphQL, and Contentful.
Tony's
Chocolonely
Freelance web developer contributing to the development of the all‑new Tony's Chocolonely website, using a standalone Node.js application to create templates for use with Laravel.
Bose
A lean, fast, highly accessible product support portal that allows users to self‑support rather than calling customer services. Provides easy‑to‑access manuals, videos, guides, and tips. Built with Mustache and AEM.
ToyBoxX
'The Jewel of the North', ToyBoxX is a hyper‑creative recording studio that needed a hyper‑creative website to attract talent to their state‑of‑the‑art recording facility.
Navico
A complicated multi‑site, multi‑lingual, e‑commerce platform on top of Episerver using Handlebars and ASP.NET Razor. A bespoke system to offer three disparate branded experiences from a single codebase.
Linkudo
Freelance full‑stack developer for this modern reimagining of the classic browser‑based word association game. Built with Next.js, Node.js, Supabase, and Redis.
Dataffirm
A complex, real‑time Angular‑based web application leveraging machine learning on 'big data' and live market analytics to identify investment opportunities.
Cox & Kings
Travel
Template and component library development for this luxury travel e‑commerce platform; one of the world's oldest travel companies.
Macmillan Education
A sophisticated, interactive, multilingual web components e‑learning platform built with Google Polymer and QTI.

"
John Kavanagh is enthusiastic and enjoys getting work completed. His opinion on how we have developed features has been key to our success this financial year. He is fun to work with, always vocal and the dynamic he brought has driven us to deliver better quality features faster than before."
Daniel Franks Product Owner
"
John Kavanagh is an incredible UI developer, mentor and passionate lead developer.
I've been incredibly impressed by his technical understanding of UX and front‑end frameworks. Rapid turnaround times with quality output and attention to detail. Would highly recommend."
Mark Burch Technical Lead
"
If you're seeking to elevate the visual appeal of your design and translate it into an exceptional user interface, John Kavanagh is the ideal professional for the job. With his outstanding skills as a UI developer, he consistently delivers remarkable work with remarkable efficiency. John's contributions make him a valuable addition to any front‑end team."
Andy Howell Technical Lead
"
John Kavanagh is an incredibly talented and efficient developer with great expertise in Gatsby and Contentful. He is incredibly personable and also always willing to share his knowledge. I also appreciated his ability to communicate openly and in a way that allowed me to find a way forward with him.
It was a pleasure to work with John and I would welcome another opportunity to work with him again!"
Clarisse Reyes Senior Client Success Manager
"
I had the pleasure of working with John Kavanagh during his time as a contractor on our Web Experience team at Nando’s. He made significant contributions to our technical SEO capabilities, delivering excellent structured data work across our recipes, blog content, and product pages. His implementation of JSON schema markup notably improved our search indexability and how our content appears in search results. He was also instrumental on updating the VI of the restaurant pages and completed that on his own.
Beyond his technical expertise, John brings a wealth of experience from his impressive career background and fits seamlessly into team culture. He's genuinely enjoyable to work with ‑ down to earth, approachable, and someone you can rely on to get the job done. His positive energy and collaborative nature made him a valued member of the team, and I wouldn't hesitate to work with him again. We will miss him at Web Ex."
Liam Kilkenny Senior Software Engineer
"
John Kavanagh is a talented front‑end developer and was also a very fast learner. No matter what was thrown at John he always delivered in a timely manner and with a professional attitude. He is easy to work with and an inspirational person to be around."
Jamie Scott CTO & Co‑Founder
"
John Kavanagh is one of the best front‑end developers I've had the pleasure of working with. Incredibly knowledgeable, great attention to detail – he understands design and why it's important to get it right. Always professional but with a great sense of fun, John would be an asset to any team and project."
Malin Johannesson Lead UI Designer
"
John Kavanagh is a fantastic developer with all the skills one would want in a lead developer. He's done a superb job on all tasks and has been a great resource within the company. Exceptionally knowledgeable, self‑motivated, and a great team player. I would certainly work with John again!"
Adam Millington Front‑end Developer
"
John Kavanagh was great to work with, solving problems without any input and contributing to the project way beyond what was expected. I'd happily work with him again and would easily recommend his talent to everyone!"
Simon Hunt Co‑Founder
"
I was lucky enough to work with John Kavanagh at Selfridges on the CX Team for the better part of a year. Throughout that time John's expertise and insight were invaluable in helping get projects started and over the finish line. He is a very approachable, diligent, and good‑humoured Front‑End Developer and I hope to work with him again soon!"
Alex Harmsworth Front‑End Developer
"
John Kavanagh is one of the most open‑minded developers I have ever worked with. His appreciation of great creative work, his enthusiasm and 'anything is possible' attitude is always a breath of fresh air. He is always super efficient and effective, combining a great work ethic with immense talent."
Mike Etheridge Creative Direction + Design
"
Delighted to write a few words of sincere praise for John Kavanagh's excellent and exciting work and help in launching our new film production company. I plan to contact him again shortly about another, completely different project, as I do not think anyone could handle it better!"
Clive Evans Director & Producer
"
It's been a pleasure to work with John Kavanagh in the web team at Nando’s. He's a top professional who has prided himself in bringing my designs to life with a high standard since day one. He has a great eye for detail with a clear understanding of user‑centric thinking and is always willing to give great suggestions from a technical standpoint.
I have also really appreciated his positive energy which gives a great lift to the team at every stand up. Any team would be lucky to work with him, as I have experienced myself!"
Edwin Yuen Senior Product Designer
"
John Kavanagh is a passionate and highly skilled developer with a wonderful ability to calmly concede downward business pressures whilst pragmatically delivering the project at hand.
John is never fazed by project management/requirement issues as are common in these environments, instead, he always finds a way to deliver value to both the end consumer and the business. It's not always easy to remain level‑headed and calm on high‑pressure projects but John's good nature and professionalism invariably remain infallible. It's an absolute pleasure working with him."
Menelik Williams Lead Full Stack Developer
"
John Kavanagh's biggest strength is his ability to deal with conflicting priorities in high‑pressure situations. Along with his excellent development skills, John's ability to manage difficult stakeholders and requirements is one of the key reasons that the projects he led were completed on time without too many problems."
Devrim Ersanli Senior Front‑end Developer
"
John Kavanagh is a highly intelligent and truly senior front‑end web developer, who's surprisingly well versed in the arcana of CSS. I enjoyed John's productivity and attitude, and I very much look forward to working together again."
Samu Lang Technical Director
"
Worked with John Kavanagh on a big Nando’s project, moving a legacy site off of Drupal and onto Vercel and Next.js.
His work and attitude are both stellar! Highly recommended."
Scott van Looy Technical Director
"
John Kavanagh was always articulate, willing to speak his mind, helpful and always did an amazing job ‑ he clearly takes immense pride in his work (and rightly so!). His attention to detail and perfectionist attitude helped produce a product that we could all be proud of."
Howell Lee Head of Business Analysis
"
I had the pleasure of working alongside John Kavanagh on a project focusing around building static webpages for a client, as well as improving their current webpages. John was an absolute pleasure to work with, he knows how to benefit the project and is able to get his point across without being offensive, this really helped him share his vast knowledge of JavaScript, Gatsby and Contentful.
I can see John fitting into most environments as he has a great sense of humour, can read the room and has very advanced soft skills."
Phanos Panayiotou Product Developer
"
John Kavanagh is very sharp and detailed when it comes to handling complex HTML and CSS components. He has a very wide knowledge of Front‑End development and knows how to sort out any problem that arises. John was an essential part of the team, and I would be happy to work with him again in the future."
Isaac Goldfarb JavaScript Developer
"
John Kavanagh is an 'above and beyond' front‑end developer. By that, a task could be assigned to John and he would complete it effectively, but more than that, if involved at the beginning of the process, he would add so much more value to the project in way of ideas, solutions, process, search optimisation, user experience and so forth."
David Mannheim Founder & CEO
"
I've worked with John Kavanagh several times, and can fully recommend his services as a front‑end web developer to anyone. He is a strong JavaScript programmer, and has thorough knowledge of cross‑platform HTML/CSS development. Always punctual, very friendly and importantly knows how to get the job done on time, maintaining a keen eye for professional detail."
Christian Duncan Technical Lead
"
John Kavanagh is an exceptional programmer who consistently delivered high‑quality work at Selfridges. He possesses exceptional front‑end development skills and has a remarkable ability to tackle complex problems with creative and effective solutions.
What sets John apart is his strong work ethic and dedication to delivering results. He is a reliable and proactive team player, willing to go the extra mile to ensure project success. I was particularly impressed with his ability to resolve issues and make the explanations simple and succinct. He communicates effectively, collaborates seamlessly with team members, and approaches challenges with a positive and solution‑oriented mindset."
Gene Da Rocha Generative AI Engineer