About Me
Hey there! I’m Stephen Wike, a software developer and creative technologist passionate about building digital experiences that make life more intuitive and joyful. I’ve always been curious—whether that’s diving into distributed systems, exploring UI animation, or spinning up new side projects just to learn something unexpected.
- 📚 Lifelong learner: I explore everything from Rust backend patterns to immersive 3D web interfaces.
- 🌐 Community builder: I contribute to open-source libraries and mentor new devs.
- 🎯 User-first: Building elegant interfaces is about empathy, not just code.
- ⚡ Fast and scalable: Performance is a feature — I love shaving milliseconds off load time.
When I’m not coding, you’ll find me learning a new dance move (literally—see my websites!), exploring trails, or geeking out over analog synths.
Spotlight Project
Line Dance Colorado
Line Dance Colorado is a social-building, dance management tool designed to connect students, teachers, and venues with the community they care about. It’s more than a directory — it’s a living, searchable hub for discovering dances, classes, events, and the people who make them happen.
- Dynamic listings for instructors, classes, venues, and events
- Searchable dance library with tags and favorites
- Designed for both newcomers and long-time dancers
Now
Right now, I’m deep in the process of designing my own small-scale design system — not a big UI kit, but a thoughtful, expressive set of patterns and components built on Tailwind and a few custom utilities.
I’m exploring things like accessibility-first defaults, expressive color tokens, and how to balance constraints with creativity. It’s more about crafting a feeling than just ticking off a components list. Eventually, I’d love to open-source it or integrate it into my portfolio tooling.
I’m also taking notes on how other systems (like Radix, shadcn/ui, and even Apple’s HIG) think about interaction and layout. It’s made me see even simple buttons in a totally different way.
Let’s Connect
Whether you want to collaborate, chat tech, talk dance, or just say hi — I’d love to hear from you. I’m always up for thoughtful projects, creative challenges, or new ideas.