Public university web work
Arizona Admissions Site Redesign
Krystian owned frontend development for the public admissions redesign and stabilized its Gatsby and Drupal implementation after a technical-lead transition.
- Drupal paragraphs
- JSON:API + GraphQL
- Gatsby components
- Responsive pages
Exact role
Senior Web Developer (frontend technical lead)
University of Arizona
Current status
Shipped
Problem
What needed to change
Admissions needed a public redesign for prospective students and families that also supported frequent updates by content editors.
Users
Who the system serves
Prospective students, families, admissions teams, marketing stakeholders, content editors, and university audiences.
Team context
Where I fit
Worked with designers, admissions and marketing stakeholders, content editors, and the broader university platform team; stepped into technical ownership after a lead transition.
Important technical decision
Krystian mapped Drupal paragraph types to reusable Gatsby components so editors could assemble pages without one-off frontend work.
Tradeoff or limitation
The system needed reusable patterns and room for custom sections at the same time, under a compressed launch schedule.
Implementation
What I personally owned
- Owned the development side of the redesign and the full experience between the shared site menu and footer.
- Worked with designers, admissions and marketing stakeholders, and content editors on the production implementation.
- Took technical ownership of the newer stack after the original technical lead left.
Constraints
Hard parts that shaped the work
- The redesign had a compressed launch schedule.
- The Gatsby and Drupal architecture was still new to the team when technical ownership changed.
- Mapped Drupal paragraph content models to Gatsby and GraphQL-powered frontend components so editors could build pages without breaking layouts.
Shipped result
What exists now
- Gatsby frontend using Drupal JSON:API endpoints and GraphQL data.
- Reusable frontend components mapped to Drupal paragraph types.
- Responsive admissions page experiences across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
Result
Verified result and current state
- The redesigned admissions experience launched.
- Editors received reusable CMS-to-frontend patterns for subsequent admissions updates.
Technical scope