Elsje Slothower
Developer & Consultant.
I solve problems with software.
With a background in front and backend work, my projects emphasize database functionality and user experience.
About
Developer
Ada Developers Academy gave me my start in software development, but the spark started in high school when I took a coding extracurricular. The basic building blocks of programming began with Snap! and I've been building on that foundation ever since. Critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity are the skills that I bring to every project I work on.
Consultant
I've spent as much of my career consulting as coding, leading on-site software deployments for municipal government agencies and training the end users who rely on the systems I help build. I care as much about a smooth rollout and a confident user as I do about clean code, and I bring the same stakeholder management and requirements-gathering skills to every engagement.
Hybrid
The part I'm best at is the overlap: translating between engineers and stakeholders, turning a client's real-world problem into a technical solution, and knowing when a project needs more debugging and when it needs more listening. Mixing development and consulting is where I do my best work.
Projects
What I've built and what I'm building.
Pro Bono Nonprofit Website
Purls of Love
A full site built pro bono for a volunteer-run nonprofit that knits and crochets blankets and hats for people in hard seasons, from NICU babies to families in shelters. It has a gallery of finished work, a donation page, and free patterns for anyone who wants to pick up a hook or needles and help.
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- Web3Forms
- GitHub Pages
AI-Centric Personal Project
Stained Glass Quote Tool
Backend that turns a customer's photo and project description into a structured, editable price quote. An LLM vision call produces the first-pass estimate. Notably, a human always reviews the estimate before it's sent. Built for a real stained glass small business.
- FastAPI
- SQLAlchemy 2.0
- PostgreSQL
- Railway
- Supabase
- Anthropic Claude API
- HTML / Tailwind
Maps for Boats
Pier to Pier
Your personal buoy buddy that helps you get from your dock to wherever the water takes you. A from-scratch A* pathfinder routes across real Puget Sound coastline data, avoiding land, with a toggle to compare a shortest route against a safer, deeper-water one.
- React
- TypeScript
- Vite
- Vitest
- Leaflet
- react-leaflet
- Node script (tsx)
- Overpass API
Kaleidoscopic, Alphanumeric Visualizer
AuraScope
A text-to-art algorithm that takes a string of letters and numbers to create a beautiful mosaic. Type in any word, phrase, or lucky number you may have gotten from a fortune cookie, and see what happens.
- TypeScript
- WebGL2
- Vite
- Vitest
- Vanilla DOM API
Ada Developers Academy Capstone project
Pantry Pickings
A dinner-party web app that helps hosts pick a recipe using ingredients they already have on hand. The app is intentionally designed - quick, simple, budget-friendly, and mindful of guests' dietary preferences and intolerances.
- React
- React Router
- Axios
- Clerk (OAuth)
- Heroku
- Flask
- SQLAlchemy 2.0
- PostgreSQL
Wordle Dupe
Guess the 5-letter word in 6 tries.
Once you have guessed the word, type the answer into the URL following elsje.codes/_____ for a secret.
- Right spot
- In the word, wrong spot
- Not in the word
Skills
Languages
- C#
- Python
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- SQL
Backend
- FastAPI
- SQLAlchemy
- PostgreSQL
- REST APIs
- Pydantic
Frontend
- React
- Next.js
- Tailwind CSS
- MVC-style architecture
- Responsive design
Tools & practices
- Git / GitHub
- pytest
- LLM API integration
- CI / CD
- Jira
Contact
Open to new opportunities and interesting projects. Let's connect.