Harmony H.

About Harmony H.

I\'m a Principal/Staff Front-End Engineer with over 10 years of experience at REI, where I’ve built a career at the intersection of accessibility and elegant, performant user experiences.Currently, I serve as the technical lead for REI\'s Search Experience team, owning the architecture and development of the front-end experience for our search pages. Prior to this, I spent over two years as the Principal Engineer on REI’s Accessibility team, driving large-scale initiatives to improve digital inclusion across our platforms.I hold CPACC and WAS certifications, which together qualify me as a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA). I\'ve hosted accessibility office hours, given demos on tools like screen readers, keyboard navigation, and axe DevTools, and helped integrate accessibility validation into CI/CD pipelines. I also lead efforts around our annual accessibility audits, partnering with teams to remediate and validate issues across our ecosystem.Earlier in my career, I helped launch REI\'s volunteer-run Accessibility Guild, which evolved into broader company-wide efforts. Accessibility isn’t just a checkbox to me — it’s a core part of how I approach engineering and team mentorship.Outside of work, I spend as much time outdoors as possible — hiking, backpacking, skiing, snowshoeing — and when I’m not on a trail, I’m probably gardening, reading, gaming, or learning something new about code, native plants, or emergency preparedness.

Experience

1. Staff Software Engineer, Search Experience

   REI

   Aug 2024 — Present

Education

• The Art Institute of Seattle

  Associate of Applied Arts, Interactive Media Design

  2004 — 2009

• University of Washington

  Bachelor of Fine Arts - BFA, Sculpture

  1998 — 2001