Maps for Moments is a personalized eCommerce platform that allows users to order custom-printed star maps based on the exact time and location of a meaningful event such as a wedding, birthday, or anniversary. The maps are rendered using astronomically accurate data, and customers can choose from different styles, frames, and even engraved necklaces as part of their order. When I joined, the company was in its early MVP stage, working toward building a more polished and scalable product
fullstack , prestashop , shopify , ecommerce
Maps for Moments
Key Features
My initial role involved contributing to both the frontend and backend of the platform, collaborating closely with designers and stakeholders to deliver a seamless user experience while supporting business KPIs. As the product grew, so did my responsibilities, expanding from feature implementation to optimizing performance, solving production bugs, and helping shape the technical foundation of the platform.
Role/Services
fullstack , prestashop , shopify , ecommerce
Client
Rgifts Limited
Date
Feb 10, 2020
The platform was initially built on a custom PrestaShop stack, backed by an in-house astronomical rendering algorithm that used a dataset from the European Space Agency to generate scientifically accurate star positions. Over time, we expanded to include additional APIs (e.g., Royal Mail, Bing Spellcheck, address verification) and transitioned the storefront to Shopify.
Key technical contributions:
- Custom Map Wizard: Developed the interactive product customization wizard, which allows users to generate and preview personalized star maps in real time.
- Shopify Migration Support: Contributed to the migration from PrestaShop to Shopify, recreating essential functionality through Liquid templates and custom Shopify apps.
- Automated Content Migration: Built a Node.js script to migrate hundreds of blog posts from PrestaShop to Shopify, preserving formatting, SEO metadata, and URL structure.
- Performance Optimization: Enabled Brotli compression, implemented
<picture>withsrcsetfor responsive image delivery, lazy-loaded content, and replaced Bootstrap with custom CSS to reduce payload size. - SEO & Accessibility: Refactored templates using semantic HTML5, structured data (JSON-LD), and best practices to improve SEO and accessibility scores.
- Custom Module Development: Created internal PrestaShop modules for seasonal theme switching, Groupon/Wowcher code handling, and custom admin tooling; later adapted similar features on Shopify using custom apps.
- Third-Party API Integrations: Handled complex integrations with shipping and address validation APIs, including error handling, retries, and async data sync.
- Architecture & Maintainability: Refactored large parts of the frontend and backend into modular components and services, improving scalability and long-term maintainability.
- Bug Resolution: Diagnosed and resolved production issues related to order quantity and sizing, adding logging and validation to prevent future errors.
Over the course of 5.5 years, my work contributed to a faster, more stable, and more maintainable platform that consistently delivered a better user experience. We improved page speed, SEO visibility, and accessibility, while reducing technical debt and operational costs. The migration to Shopify provided a leaner backend with less maintenance, while retaining our ability to build custom features.
I started as a junior developer in a team of three. After 2.5 years, I was promoted to mid-level, and after the team reduced to two developers, I took on significantly more responsibility, independently delivering key features and participating in architectural decisions. This project represents a defining chapter in my career, combining deep technical work with long-term impact.
