Doug Kulak
DK

Hello, my name is Doug Kulak. I am a digital solutions architect with an extensive background in full-stack web development and responsive web design. I have end-to-end experience working for some of Orange County's premier digital advertising agencies and have built high-traffic and mission-critical applications for clients including Google, American Express, GE, YouTube, DreamWorks, and McDonald's. I scale comfortably from high-level architecture to hands-on, tactical execution and after 20 years, I continue to focus on what I enjoy most: Learning, improving, and making awesome websites.

End-to-End Experience

Discovery

Strategy

UX/UI

Design

Development

Support

GE Energy Financial Services

Responsive Website Rebuild

A truly energizing project

While working for Orange County, California based digital marketing agency, Rhythm, Doug Kulak led the team to build and launch one of General Electric's first responsive websites. Deciding on CakePHP as our backend framework, Doug architected and developed the application and data layers while assisting a small team of front-end developers on a user friendly, cross-browser-compatible interface.

Built with CakePHP, jQuery, Modernizr, Selectivizr, RespondJS, Zurb Foundation, HTML5, CSS, Google Sheets
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GE Energy Financial Services

Irvine Company Retail

Responsive Website Rebuild

Where luxury meets technology

While working for Orange County, California based digital marketing agency, Rhythm, Doug Kulak led the team to develop a fully responsive website for The Irvine Company's retail division, powered by the open-source ASP.NET CMS Umbraco and AngularJS. Rhythm's Senior Art Director, Chris Guadarrama, created a truly stunning and responsive design that we modularized with a flexible widget system, allowing The Irvine Company to extend and enhance the site in just about any way imaginable. The launch was one of the smoothest The Irvine Company had seen and they had nothing but great things to say about us and their new website.

Built with ASP.NET, C#, Umbraco CMS, Bootstrap, AngularJS, jQuery, HTML5, CSS3, Hangfire, Pivotal, Google Tag Manager
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Irvine Company Retail

SmartStop Self Storage

Responsive Website Rebuild

New digital leaders in the self-storage space

While working for Orange County, California based digital marketing agency, Rhythm, Doug Kulak assembled and lead a team of developers to launch SmartStop's first responsive and mobile-first website. The site immediately propelled SmartStop's online experience to the top of the list within the industry, outshining competitor's sites that had fallen behind with the times. We built the site on top of a custom CakePHP CMS we had written, which was heavily inspired by the flexibility of the open source ASP.NET CMS, Umbraco.

Built with CakePHP, Custom CMS, Bootstrap SASS, Modernizr, jQuery, AngularJS, HTML5, CSS3, Google Tag Manager
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SmartStop Self Storage

Francisco Bread

Responsive Website Rebuild

Delivering the recipe for success

While working for Orange County, California based digital marketing agency, Rhythm, Doug Kulak architected and developed Bimbo Bakeries' first responsive website with Drupal. The site showcases their products and features them in a variety of beautifully photographed recipes, enticing visitors to recreate them at home. The launch was a huge success and the site became an example of how all of Bimbo's brand websites should be.

Built with PHP, Drupal, Zen, jQuery, Selectivizr, HTML5, CSS3
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Francisco Bread

LRE Water

Responsive Website Rebuild

A refreshing rebuild

While consulting for Denver, Colorado based water engineering firm, Leonard Rice Engineers, Doug Kulak helped execute marketing's vision and led the development of a modern, Jamstack-based company website. All of the content and media is fully manageable via an open-source Headless CMS & API, Directus.

Built with Next.js, Directus CMS, Material UI, JavaScript
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LRE Water

Skills

Frontend
Frontend
Next.js, React, Vue, Angular
Material UI, Chakra UI, Tailwind
Bootstrap, VanillaJS, VanillaCSS
Webpack, Browserify, Jade, Liquid
JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SASS
Flexbox, CSS Grid, Gasbag, Tables
Jest, Puppeteer, Selenium
jQuery, Lo-Dash, Underscore
IntelliJ, Resharper, VSCode
Backend
Backend
Node.js, C#/.NET, PHP, Java
Laravel, CakePHP, Drupal, WordPress
Umbraco, Sitecore, Joomla
Shopify, OpenCart, WooCommerce
Apache, Nginx, IIS, Express
XML, JSON, REST, AJAX
MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL
MongoDB, Firebase, noSQL
NPM/Yarn, Lerna, Monorepos
DevOps
DevOps
AWS, EC2, S3, EBS, ELB
Route53, SQS, SES, IAM
Azure, DigitalOcean, Linode
Netlify, Heroku, CDN
MacOS, Windows, Linux
Ubuntu, CentOS, RedHat
Git, GitHub, Subversion, TFS
JIRA, Confluence, Bamboo
NewRelic, AlertLogic IDS/WAF

Experience

Founder & CEOKulak Consulting
January, 2009 — Present • Redding, CA

Freelance. Dedicated to developing performant and secure solutions that improve user satisfaction and experience. Exceed company goals while defining and improving key performance indicators and metrics. Outstanding ability to problem-solve and work collaboratively. Available immediately for contract and/or permanent work.

Senior Software ArchitectWorkWave, Inc.
November, 2015 — November, 2017 • Holmdel, NJ

Architected, designed, and developed new SaaS-based lead management and marketing automation software that generated over $1 million in annual recurring revenue in the first year. Analyzed, documented, and improved flagship software APIs with micro service-oriented architecture.

Director of TechnologyRhythm Interactive, Inc.
May, 2013 — October, 2015 • Irvine, CA

Led and managed an in-house team of talented software developers. Expanded department from 3 to 17 members in just under 2 years. Analyzed and estimated feasibility, costs, and timeline for all incoming development projects. Led and/or developed 10+ large-scale web development projects with budgets exceeding $1 million.

Senior Web DeveloperThe Buddy Group, Inc.
May, 2011 — May, 2013 • Costa Mesa, CA

Developed websites and applications for Fortune 100 companies including Google, YouTube, American Express, and McDonald's. Hosted routine, cross-department "lunch and learn" sessions to mentor and train curious or aspiring developers on exciting new technologies.

Education

College of the Siskiyous
General Education
1997-1998 • Weed, CA
Central Valley High School
High School Diploma
1997 • Shasta Lake, CA
Stanford Educational Program for Gifted Youth
Mathematics
1997 • Palo Alto, CA

Contact

dougkulak@gmail.com
(530) 500-2220
Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM PST
Redding, California
DK

© 2025 Doug Kulak • dougkulak@gmail.com • 530-500-2220