While at Testlify, I identified a significant operational bottleneck: the company was spending capital on a disconnected, third-party time-tracking tool that lacked deep integration with our actual engineering workflows. Working alongside a dedicated internal team, I led the frontend engineering for Timesheets by AppForest, a custom-built, enterprise-grade Jira plugin designed to seamlessly handle time tracking, real-time productivity insights, and granular cost allocation.
Technical Scope & Contributions
- Atlassian Ecosystem Integration: Navigated complex Jira Developer APIs and UI frameworks to build natively for the Atlassian Marketplace. I collaborated closely with backend engineers to ensure our frontend interfaces properly maintained strict OAuth scopes and respected enterprise-grade security protocols.
- Frictionless UI/UX within Jira: Designed a highly responsive UI embedded directly inside Jira issue panels. I engineered features for frictionless "one-click" time logging and custom timeframes (daily, weekly, monthly), removing the context-switching penalty engineers typically face when tracking their hours.
- Real-Time Data & Reporting Pipelines: Built comprehensive data-visualization dashboards that process and display live updates on organizational productivity. Furthermore, I engineered robust export pipelines, enabling project stakeholders to instantly generate customizable, on-demand reports in CSV and PDF formats for accurate financial allocation.
Business Impact
By transitioning the organization to this bespoke internal solution, we completely eliminated our reliance on the expensive third-party SaaS provider, instantly saving the company over $9,000 annually. Beyond the immediate cost reduction, the plugin gave leadership unprecedented, real-time visibility into team velocity and project costs, dramatically improving resource forecasting and stakeholder communication across the board.