Sharesies Open
Overview
At Sharesies, I led the development of a self-service portal for companies managing employee share schemes (ESS)—a major step in expanding Sharesies Open’s feature set. The portal is intended to replace a manual, spreadsheet-based workflow with a fully integrated company-facing interface.
As the sole developer on the project, I worked closely with a product designer, business analysts, and senior engineers. My focus was building the foundations right: secure, scalable access to sensitive data; a smooth UX for business users; and an architecture that enabled rapid iteration without disruption to existing systems.
The work required navigating two legacy backends—Retail and Open—with separate databases and access patterns. I introduced a clean, maintainable internal API to bridge the two, avoiding duplication and preserving future flexibility.
Designed and delivered a read-only MVP in just 6 weeks
Integrated new functionality into existing services with zero downtime
Set the technical foundations for future CRUD capabilities
Categories
Saas
Full-stack
Client
Sharesies
Project Detail
Bridging Two Codebases Without Duplication
Employee share scheme data lived in the Retail backend, while Sharesies Open was designed to face companies directly. To avoid duplicating data or creating syncing issues, I established a secure internal API that connected the two systems.
Using a shared fund_id, I created a reliable relationship between a company in Open and its corresponding entities in Retail —even when they weren’t mapped 1:1. This allowed us to expose ESS data safely and accurately within the new portal.
Cross Functional Collaboration
I navigated a genuinely cross-functional process; balancing stakeholder needs with my own technical judgment.
Collaborating daily with a product and design to translate intent and mocks into responsive UI
Co-working sessions with BAs to clarify edge cases
Architecture workshops with senior devs to sketch and refine data flows
I knew when to ask questions, when to propose solutions, and when to slow down and listen. Resulting in a better product —and better working relationships.
Security and Permissions Built for Growth
I expanded the Sharesies Open permissions system to support the ESS (and future) company-facing features.
The back-end permissions system was expanded to allow fine-grained authorisation per staff member within a company. Features are also gated by company plans and subscription levels, using feature flags to manage access. This let us roll out new capabilities gradually, test with specific cohorts, and prepare for monetisation pathways.
The changes were released with no downtime, using an expand-and-contract migration strategy that allowed safe schema evolution while keeping existing users unaffected.
Sharesies Open
Overview
At Sharesies, I led the development of a self-service portal for companies managing employee share schemes (ESS)—a major step in expanding Sharesies Open’s feature set. The portal is intended to replace a manual, spreadsheet-based workflow with a fully integrated company-facing interface.
As the sole developer on the project, I worked closely with a product designer, business analysts, and senior engineers. My focus was building the foundations right: secure, scalable access to sensitive data; a smooth UX for business users; and an architecture that enabled rapid iteration without disruption to existing systems.
The work required navigating two legacy backends—Retail and Open—with separate databases and access patterns. I introduced a clean, maintainable internal API to bridge the two, avoiding duplication and preserving future flexibility.
Designed and delivered a read-only MVP in just 6 weeks
Integrated new functionality into existing services with zero downtime
Set the technical foundations for future CRUD capabilities
Categories
Saas
Full-stack
Client
Sharesies
Project Detail
Bridging Two Codebases Without Duplication
Employee share scheme data lived in the Retail backend, while Sharesies Open was designed to face companies directly. To avoid duplicating data or creating syncing issues, I established a secure internal API that connected the two systems.
Using a shared fund_id, I created a reliable relationship between a company in Open and its corresponding entities in Retail —even when they weren’t mapped 1:1. This allowed us to expose ESS data safely and accurately within the new portal.
Cross Functional Collaboration
I navigated a genuinely cross-functional process; balancing stakeholder needs with my own technical judgment.
Collaborating daily with a product and design to translate intent and mocks into responsive UI
Co-working sessions with BAs to clarify edge cases
Architecture workshops with senior devs to sketch and refine data flows
I knew when to ask questions, when to propose solutions, and when to slow down and listen. Resulting in a better product —and better working relationships.
Security and Permissions Built for Growth
I expanded the Sharesies Open permissions system to support the ESS (and future) company-facing features.
The back-end permissions system was expanded to allow fine-grained authorisation per staff member within a company. Features are also gated by company plans and subscription levels, using feature flags to manage access. This let us roll out new capabilities gradually, test with specific cohorts, and prepare for monetisation pathways.
The changes were released with no downtime, using an expand-and-contract migration strategy that allowed safe schema evolution while keeping existing users unaffected.
Sharesies Open
Overview
At Sharesies, I led the development of a self-service portal for companies managing employee share schemes (ESS)—a major step in expanding Sharesies Open’s feature set. The portal is intended to replace a manual, spreadsheet-based workflow with a fully integrated company-facing interface.
As the sole developer on the project, I worked closely with a product designer, business analysts, and senior engineers. My focus was building the foundations right: secure, scalable access to sensitive data; a smooth UX for business users; and an architecture that enabled rapid iteration without disruption to existing systems.
The work required navigating two legacy backends—Retail and Open—with separate databases and access patterns. I introduced a clean, maintainable internal API to bridge the two, avoiding duplication and preserving future flexibility.
Designed and delivered a read-only MVP in just 6 weeks
Integrated new functionality into existing services with zero downtime
Set the technical foundations for future CRUD capabilities
Categories
Saas
Full-stack
Client
Sharesies
Project Detail
Bridging Two Codebases Without Duplication
Employee share scheme data lived in the Retail backend, while Sharesies Open was designed to face companies directly. To avoid duplicating data or creating syncing issues, I established a secure internal API that connected the two systems.
Using a shared fund_id, I created a reliable relationship between a company in Open and its corresponding entities in Retail —even when they weren’t mapped 1:1. This allowed us to expose ESS data safely and accurately within the new portal.
Cross Functional Collaboration
I navigated a genuinely cross-functional process; balancing stakeholder needs with my own technical judgment.
Collaborating daily with a product and design to translate intent and mocks into responsive UI
Co-working sessions with BAs to clarify edge cases
Architecture workshops with senior devs to sketch and refine data flows
I knew when to ask questions, when to propose solutions, and when to slow down and listen. Resulting in a better product —and better working relationships.
Security and Permissions Built for Growth
I expanded the Sharesies Open permissions system to support the ESS (and future) company-facing features.
The back-end permissions system was expanded to allow fine-grained authorisation per staff member within a company. Features are also gated by company plans and subscription levels, using feature flags to manage access. This let us roll out new capabilities gradually, test with specific cohorts, and prepare for monetisation pathways.
The changes were released with no downtime, using an expand-and-contract migration strategy that allowed safe schema evolution while keeping existing users unaffected.
