Jay McBride
A personal site with an editorial, technical look — and one structural decision at the centre of it: two audiences, split at the first screen.
Problem & Scope
The Challenge
A personal site for someone who both takes engineering roles and takes on build work has a split-audience problem. A hiring manager wants a track record: titles, dates, scope, what shipped. Someone who needs software built wants capability and a way to start a conversation. Most personal sites pick one reader and quietly lose the other, or mash both into a single scroll that half-serves each.
What We Built
- Editorial layout with a visible structural grid
- Two labelled entry points from the first screen — track record, or engagement
- Experience timeline with roles, dates and scope
- Working principles section
- Availability status shown in the header
- Dark and light modes
What Makes It Work
The Split Is the First Thing You See
Two cards under the name: one for someone hiring for a role, one for someone who needs something built. Naming both readers out loud lets each self-select in a second rather than scrolling to work out which site this is.
A Grid You Can See
Column rules and section markers are left visible rather than hidden, which suits a site about engineering work. The structure is the decoration — there is no stock photography anywhere on it.
Status in the Header
Current availability sits at the top of the page with the local time beside it. It answers the question that brings most people to a personal site before they've scrolled at all.
How We Built It
Design for Two Readers, Not an Average of Them
Rather than compromise on one page that half-suits both, the split happens at the top and each path is built for its own reader. Averaging two audiences produces a page that convinces neither.
Let the Record Be Specific
Roles, dates, progression, and what each one actually covered — mobile, web, backend, cloud. Vague seniority claims are easy to write and worth nothing; a timeline with scope attached does the work.
Restraint Over Decoration
One accent colour, one display face, a mono for labels, and a lot of empty space. For a technical reader, restraint reads as confidence — and it keeps the page fast.
Say What You're Open To
The site states plainly what kind of work is being taken on right now. It's the least designed thing on the page and probably the most useful.
We Can Build Something Like This For You.
Designed, built and shipped end to end — the storefront, the integration and the documentation. If your business needs the same, that is the work we do.