Curriculum Vitae

Summary

My name is Simon Borer. I am a Toronto-based web developer and educator specializing in accessibility. Since March 2023, I've worked as a Web Development Specialist with Ontario's Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development (MLITSD). Previously, I taught in Humber College's postgraduate Web Development program and worked as a Senior Software Developer and accessibility Subject Matter Expert at BMO.

I like playing Rummikub, scary movies, and my 1986 IBM Model M keyboard.

Experience

• March 2023 to Present
  • Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development (MLITSD) Web Development Specialist
    • Develop and maintain WordPress services, with responsibilities spanning accessibility remediation, code review, deployments, and coordination with project and infrastructure teams.
    • Designed and implemented a team-used accessibility testing workflow combining Playwright and axe-core regression checks with documented manual keyboard and screen-reader review.
    • Created a version-controlled developer onboarding guide, now used for all new developers on the team and maintained collaboratively.
    • Advise and coach colleagues on web and document accessibility, explain findings, and help resolve conflicting technical guidance.
• 2018 to 2023
  • Humber College Professor
    • Designed and taught postgraduate courses in Humber College's Web Development program, including Accessibility & Usability from 2018 to 2023. Course notes are historical teaching material, not current technical guidance.
    • Independently created the Accessibility & Usability teaching material and assignments, guiding classes of 25–35 students through usability study planning, testing with screen-reader or keyboard-only workflows, analysis, and recommendations.
    • Designed the delivery format and consulted on assessment rubrics.
  • Humber College Project Manager
    • Managed a multi-year student-driven project with a community healthcare partner organization to track quality of life for vulnerable members.
    • Worked with the technical and UX team and partner organization to deliver tools and assets.
• 2014 to 2018
  • Bank of Montreal Senior Software Developer / Accessibility Subject Matter Expert
    • Redefined developer workflow, introducing for the first time version control (git), build tools (Node, gulp), unit testing, linting, SCSS, CSS methodology (BEM), mobile-first and more.
    • Developed custom solution for internal style guide - combining both automated code documentation and bespoke technical writing.
    • Instigated and lead meetings to de-silo dev, design, content and app development teams.
    • Developed WCAG 2.0 Level AA compliant campaigns and components, including custom location maps, video players, calculators.
    • Presented on behalf of the development department at international town halls.
• 2013
  • McLaren-McCann Web Development Contractor
    • Worked with clients including General Motors, Pan-Am Games.
    • Developed pages and components, including multi-step contest form in XHTML, CSS3 with custom extensible JS functionality on a Struts framework, with full support for JAWS screenreader (test in-house) and WCAG 2.0 compliance.
    • Built out full site using Bootstrap 3 on top of Apache Struts on a Tomcat server.
• 2012
  • Tribal/DDB Web Development Contractor
    • UI development and debugging for major brands including MacDonald’s and Subaru.
  • Pixel Dreams Web Development Contractor
    • Developed custom Wordpress themes, dealt with malicious SQL injection attacks, consulted on brand development, designed in Bootstrap.
  • OfficialCommunity Web Development Contractor
    • Worked in a fast-paced ASP-driven environment, including creating HTML e-mails & templates, performing design, development and content management on high profile websites including KeithRichards.com, GeorgeMichael.com and BillyTalent.com.

Skills

My current practice includes accessible WordPress development with PHP and JavaScript; WCAG 2.2 implementation and remediation; Playwright and axe-core regression testing; manual keyboard, NVDA, zoom, reflow, and forced-colours testing; document accessibility; code review; and developer onboarding. I also use Accessibility Insights, Lighthouse, and browser accessibility trees to investigate barriers.

• HTML

  • DOM
  • ARIA
  • Semantics

• CSS

  • SCSS
  • BEM
  • CSS Grid
  • Flexbox
  • PostCSS

• JavaScript

  • Vanilla
  • JSON
  • ES6+
  • Node
  • Express
  • Gulp
  • Webpack
  • jQuery
  • Vue
  • Jest

• Other

  • Communication
  • Documentation/Technical Writing
  • Linting
  • SEO
  • SQL (PL/SQL, Oracle, Postgres, MySQL)
  • DevOps
  • Git
  • Email Development
  • SVG
  • PHP
  • RegEx
  • WordPress

Education

• 2011-2012
  • Humber College Web Development Post-Graduate Program
• 2007-2011
  • University of Toronto B.A. with Highest Distinction