Jake Rutter

Story

A little about me

I'm a seasoned digital technology leader with over two decades of experience in digital marketing, e-commerce, and product engineering. Currently at SharkNinja, I'm passionate about building high-performing teams and leveraging technology — increasingly AI — to create meaningful digital capabilities and experiences.

With a solid front-end engineering and user experience foundation, I have held pivotal positions including Director of Global Front End Engineering and VP of Digital User Experience. Throughout my career I have excelled at leading cross-functional teams, migrating platforms, implementing new architectures, and optimizing SDLC processes for global brands like SharkNinja, The North Face, Vans, and Priceline.

More recently, I've been diving deep into AI — both as a practitioner and a builder. I've integrated AI-powered features into production applications, built AI-first products from the ground up, and actively explore how large language models and agentic workflows can unlock new kinds of user experiences. My side projects TradeTrek and StrategicPulse are direct expressions of this interest: real products built with AI at the core, not as an afterthought.

Small apps

What draws me in

I've always been fascinated with hyper local apps like JamBase and Bandsintown. I love music and discovering new things, places and travel.

Travel is a huge part of who I am — the offline analog alongside digital nomad.

That is why I build things like Tails over Thames, a plane-spotting app for one spot in London; Mind the Timetable, for trains; and Three Today.

See my travels →

Career

Year by year

  1. SharkNinja, London

    Senior Director, Global DTC Engineering from January 2025. I relocated to lead from the Battersea office after a year of remote leadership from the US. The work has been an in-house DTC engineering group, the Salesforce stack across EMEA and North America, and an agent-assisted way of building. SharkNinja recognized that work with a True Edge award in July 2025. In September 2026 the title became VP, DTC Engineering & Applied AI. I live in Barnes.

  2. VF Corporation, Connecticut and Delaware

    Director, Global Front-End Engineering, eCommerce. Twenty-two front-end engineers across North America and Europe, for The North Face, Vans, Timberland, Eastpak, JanSport, Kipling, Napapijri, Smartwool, Altra, Icebreaker, and Dickies. The North Face, Vans, and Timberland went onto Salesforce Commerce Cloud and a Vue and Nuxt front end, across eight languages and 24 locales. Contentsquare certified, December 2023. An ELC engineering peer group from 2024 into 2025.

  3. Web Designer

    Three pieces for Imagine Publishing. Issue 189, the cover story, “jQuery for Designers.” Issue 192, twenty jQuery tips in the Hot 100, also on the cover. Issue 199, building a mobile site with Mobify and jQuery, from before responsive design was the default.

  4. Smashing jQuery

    During the Direct Wines years, Wiley asked me to write a book after the blog. About three months, 300+ pages, published 8 February 2011 by John Wiley and Sons. Over 5,000 copies. I sent copies to jQuery founder John Resig and to Addy Osmani.

  5. Direct Wines

    Norwalk, Connecticut, and a few months in Theale in 2022. I joined as a senior web designer during the shift from a .NET stack to Oracle ATG, then became Interactive Director, Director of Digital Technology, VP of Digital User Experience, and VP of Global Front-End Engineering. White-label wine ecommerce for the US, the UK, and Australia: mobile sites on Mobify, a React checkout, Optimizely experiments, and a Contentful migration that cut time to market from six weeks to two. Near the end I designed a front end for about twenty sites, from a JSP monolith toward a Next.js monorepo and CommerceTools, with people in India, the UK, Australia, and the US. WSET Level 2 in 2015. A Technology Leadership certificate from eCornell in 2022.

  6. Always Moving Forward

    I ran a WordPress blog under that name, and later moved the posts to Medium. I still write a personal journal almost daily.

  7. Connecticut and New York

    Sellsonic in Ridgefield, MusiKube in New York, JupiterMedia in Darien, then LifeMed Media in Westport, designing and building the front end of dLife.com. In the same stretch I finished a B.S. in Visual Communications at Westwood College of Technology Online, 2005–2007. After that: Cullinane in Old Greenwich, a short stint at Vertrue, Priceline in Norwalk, and FanBoom.com with friends on evenings and weekends, which we closed for lack of funding. Then RemoTV in New Haven.

  8. Rutter Interactive

    A freelance studio alongside the staff jobs. Sites, newsletters, and marketing for small businesses, on WordPress, ExpressionEngine, and Magento. I also built and ran StamfordCTGuide.com and SoNoCTGuide.com.

  9. Burlington

    A.A.S. in Web Design and Management at Champlain College. Dean's List, spring 2002.

  10. Stamford

    Two summers on the water before the web work. Sail maintenance at Hathaway, Reiser & Raymond, then a season as a sailing instructor on Colgate 26s at Offshore Sailing School.

How I like to work

Progress over perfection

01

Understand the problem

What is the problem you are trying to solve. Start with why.

02

Design an MVP

What are the possible solutions, and what can we build quickly to get some answers?

03

Test and learn

Is this solving the problem statement? Take the learnings and go through it again.

Off the roadmap

Interests

  • AI / LLMs
  • Agentic workflows
  • eCommerce
  • Digital transformation
  • Product management
  • Next.js / React
  • Shopify
  • Salesforce SFRA
  • Headless CMS
  • Airtable & Notion
  • Pickleball

In my spare time, I like to spend time with friends and family, listen to music, play guitar, read books, play pickleball, and I love exploring.

School

  • B.S. Visual Communications, Westwood College of Technology Online, 2005–2007
  • A.A.S. Web Design and Management, Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont, 2001–2003
Progress over perfection.