◉ Grace Erixon Vrbka

Grace Erixon Vrbka.

Full-stack engineer at Superb Shifts, a healthcare staffing platform. CTO on paper, engineer in practice.

Say hello ↗ See the work ↓
01 The work currently in production
Flagship 2024 → now

Superb Shifts. A two-sided healthcare staffing platform serving 15,010 users and 158 senior living facilities.

Own all infrastructure, frontend, backend, security, and new feature development. Joined as a full-stack engineer, promoted to CTO 18 months in, sole engineer since October 2025.

A

UI and onboarding

Redesigned and refactored the UI across three user types (facilities, healthcare workers, admins) and iteratively overhauled the onboarding flow based on real user friction. Migrated all views to a consistent component library for visual and functional parity.

B

Email and comms

Designed an email marketing system from scratch: SendGrid on the backend, MJML responsive templates, a React Email Editor drag-and-drop builder on the frontend, and audience segmentation. Integrated a multi-channel communication layer spanning Stream Chat, Stream Video, Firebase push notifications, Twilio SMS, and SendGrid.

C

Admin and ops tooling

Grew the admin tooling to support 15,000+ user records at scale: worker search and filtering, shift metrics dashboards, event logging, user impersonation for debugging, bulk messaging, and PostHog analytics with feature flags. Optimized data-heavy pages with virtualized rendering and lightweight API endpoints.

D

Subcontractor portal

Identified an opportunity to bring third-party staffing agencies onto the platform as a new revenue channel. Built the portal end-to-end: full NestJS backend module, role-based access control, and contract management.

Next.js 14NestJSPostgreSQLPrismaAzureCapacitorStripeStreamTwilioSendGrid
snapshot as of Mar 2026
Shift hours completed
0
since launch · trending up
shifts ▲ 83%
Total shifts on the platform
62K
up from 34K when I joined
reach
Healthcare workers on the platform
0
growth ▲ 163%
Facilities served
60
158
since I joined, April 2024
reliability
0
major outages since launch
a reliability-first mindset keeps the platform steady for the workers and facilities who depend on it
02 Seven years, visualized 2019 to present

Seven years of shipping.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
less
more
03 Before this previous roles
2021→2024

Developer Advocate · WP Engine

Produced technical content for WP Engine's headless WordPress ecosystem: demo projects, tutorials, blog posts, documentation, and live streams. Worked closely with product teams to test features and communicate customer pain points into actionable product changes for Atlas hosting and the Faust.js framework. Managed a headless WordPress Discord community, growing it from under 400 members in 2022 to over 1,500 by 2024. Led the Omaha chapter of ROAR, the women's ERG.

Read my posts on WP Engine Builders ↗
DevRelFaust.jsWPGraphQLReact
2021

Software Engineering Intern · PaymentSpring, a Nelnet company

Enhanced the subscriptions view for nonprofits in a legacy codebase, adding pagination and server-side filtering. Resolved tech debt across user-generated reports, subscription deletion warnings, and the password reset flow.

Vue.jsDockerRSpecPayments
2019→2020

Software Engineering Intern · Flywheel, a WP Engine product

Worked on a team to build and launch Flywheel's Add-on marketplace. Co-developed four add-ons (Performance Insights, Managed Plugin Updates, Slack, and Divi) generating $41,700+ in monthly recurring revenue by August 2020. Pitched the Divi Add-on and led a team of interns through design, development, and release.

Ruby on RailsVue.jsWordPressHAML
2016→2019

Systems App Dev + Project Management Intern · Gallup

First engineering role, starting in high school. Improved InTheZone, Gallup's internal health tracking tool, in C#. Designed a team assignment tool based on CliftonStrengthsFinder profiles. Later promoted to project management intern, managing three teams of development interns and researching cross-team project management solutions. Audited 60 landing pages for feature opportunities.

C#Internal toolsProject managementMentorship
04 Toolkit what I reach for
Daily drivers
UI & data
Cloud & quality
Integrations
05 Beyond the desk speaking · community · teaching
Nonprofit Board of Directors President

Mystery Code Society

President of a nonprofit teaching coding to underrepresented youth in Omaha, overseeing community partnerships, class organization, and new initiatives while guiding annual planning and financial decisions. On the board since 2020 (previously Treasurer for 3 years, Vice President for 1 year).

  • Wrote curriculum for four courses: Web Dev I, Web Dev II, JavaScript I, and JavaScript Game Development
  • Taught or assisted in seven course sessions
Advisory Board

Millard Public Schools · STEM Advisory

Advise on Millard's STEM Academy program, sharing industry trends and workforce development needs with educators, while hearing directly from students on their experience with the curriculum. 2022 → present.

Women's ERG Lead

WP Engine · ROAR Omaha Chapter

Led the Omaha chapter of WP Engine's women's employee resource group, organizing service projects and social events while serving on the Omaha Community Council for company-wide initiatives. 2022 → 2024.

Volunteer

Omaha Refugee Task Force

Web developer and volunteer coordinator, 2019 → 2022. Built and maintained the organization's WordPress site (omaharefugees.com), serving 300+ monthly visitors. Coordinated volunteers alongside the development work.

Speaking
  • 2024Closing Keynote at Code Crush, UNO IS&T
  • 2024Alumni Panelist at Code Crush, UNO IS&T
  • 2024Workshop Facilitator at Code Crush, leading a resume website session for 8th & 9th graders
  • 2017Presenter at Omaha Coffee & Code
  • 2016Speaker at the Nebraska JavaScript Conference
06 Education formal training
B.S. · Software Development

Bellevue University

Finished with a 4.0 GPA in 2022.

4.0 GPA
2022 Graduated
07 Get in touch

Building something interesting? I'd love to hear about it.

[01] email → [02] linkedin /in/grace-erixon-vrbka →