Steve Castillo
Full-Stack Developer for web apps and business systems
New to Contra
Steve is ready for their next project!
Can a website feel like a safe place?
That question became A Place Kept Safe, a digital experience created for moments when someone needs calm, courage, company, or simply a reminder of what it feels like to be home.
The little cat is not merely a decorative mascot. I made her The Guardian because cats have a unique way of caring: they do not ask questions, try to fix everything, or demand attention. They simply stay close. Sometimes, that quiet presence is exactly what we need.
The entire experience was designed around that idea. Visitors can choose the emotional space they need and explore a series of illustrated scenes shaped by a warm color palette, editorial typography, and deliberately gentle motion. The Guardian remains the narrative thread connecting every part of the journey.
Finish Layer helped translate this visual direction into a responsive design system using Stacks, Block Hiding, Block Transforms, and Block Animations. I created device-specific compositions, structured content hierarchies, subtle visual offsets, and progressive entrances to preserve the rhythm of the experience without overwhelming the visitor.
For the final scene, I developed a custom interaction in JavaScript and CSS: a sequence of 24 transparent frames synchronized with scroll progress, in which The Guardian follows a light, moves forward, gradually slows down, and finally rests.
The implementation combines normalized scroll progress, smooth interpolation, requestAnimationFrame, IntersectionObserver, GPU-accelerated translate3d transforms, and independent motion paths for different screen sizes. It also includes a prefers-reduced-motion fallback, preserving the narrative for visitors who prefer a more static experience.
The result is not intended to give advice or solve what someone may be feeling. It simply keeps a light on, offers a quiet journey, and reminds us that some forms of care are understood through what they quietly do.
A Place Kept Safe is an emotional idea brought to life as an interactive, responsive, and technically crafted web experience.
Private website: https://decagon-frog-kpzh.squarespace.com/
Password: 123
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Provided technical consulting for an existing software platform, focusing on code quality, maintainability, architecture, and engineering standards.
I reviewed pull requests and existing implementations to identify technical debt, recurring code issues, architectural risks, and opportunities for improvement.
My work included defining code conventions and development guidelines, evaluating technical trade-offs, supporting architectural decisions, and proposing improvements based on scalability, performance, maintainability, and delivery constraints.
I also contributed to the design of REST API endpoints for transactional business modules, including virtual wallet operations, payment splitting, and mixed-payment flows requiring data consistency and atomic transactions.
This is a confidential case study. Client source code, internal documentation, credentials, proprietary business rules, and sensitive platform information are not displayed.
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Created a complete Figma design for an online marketplace, including a responsive landing page, product discovery sections, authentication flows, favorites, chat, and publishing screens.
The design was structured with reusable components, clear visual hierarchy, responsive behavior, and a consistent design system.
I help businesses transform Figma designs into production-ready landing pages and web applications using Next.js, Astro, React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS.
My work covers responsive implementation, clean frontend architecture, forms, animations, API integration, SEO basics, performance optimization, and deployment.
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Developed and improved a responsive institutional platform for managing budget requests, payments, expense reports, POA processes, approvals, documents, and administrative reporting.
I worked across the full stack, implementing frontend interfaces with Next.js and TypeScript, backend APIs with NestJS, role-based access control, and PostgreSQL data management.
The platform includes operational dashboards, advanced filters, Excel exports, document workflows integrated with Google Drive, and performance optimizations for frequently accessed views and queries.
This project is presented as a confidential case study. Sensitive data, credentials, proprietary business rules, and internal information are not displayed.
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