Overview

At UMD Coffee, we are UMD’s coffee social club that emphasizes good coffee and good company. We use free coffee to bring students together through weekly coffee socials, collaborations with other clubs, free barista classes, and partnerships with direct-trade and Fairtrade roasters. We have grown into one of the largest student organizations on campus, helping start coffee clubs at other universities.

Goals

We want to cater to our club members, other universities, and potential partners with accessibility in mind. Our goals revolve around having a low friction and uncluttered site, easy upkeep from marketing requiring no software development experience, documentation for UMD Coffee guides/events, and a whimsical, fun tone.

From Engineer…

I joined in February 2026 as a software engineer. With limited experience, I was responsible for creating reusable card components, the events section, and an animated partner carousel to show our appreciation for our sponsors.

…to Tech Lead!

In September 2026, I became the tech lead developer. My time as an engineer on the project and my internship at Capital Technology Group shaped how I run it.

• Ported from HTML/CSS/JavaScript to React: I noticed the site layout is very geometric, requiring a lot of reusable components. React solves this problem while aligning with technologies modern websites use.
• Scoping tickets: Every ticket is a small, deliverable feature, so developers can work in parallel without stepping on each other.

Failures I overcame

• Tickets that were too big: When I wrote backlog tickets for SlateData during my internship, each one touched a lot of the codebase, which led to tons of merge conflicts. Now I narrow large features into small ones before they reach the backlog.
• Starting with limited experience: I joined with limited experience. Seven months later, the cards, events section and carousel I built had taught me enough of the codebase to lead it.

What I learned

• A layout full of repeating shapes is a sign you need components, so the framework should match the design.
• Leading is mostly scoping. How a feature is split decides how smoothly 10+ developers can work on it.

Result

I am currently leading 10+ developers, with the home page complete and built from reusable React components. Planning to finish the website by Spring 2027.