Elías Hernández

Who I am

I am David Elías Hernández Morales, a frontend engineer based in New Zealand. I build interfaces for large-scale products, with a focus on component architecture, accessibility, and code that stays maintainable long after it ships. I care about the part of engineering that does not show: the decisions underneath a component, the reasons a system holds together or quietly falls apart.

Good software, like good writing, is a question of precision, rhythm, and care.

Background

I came to software through language. I trained in Hispanic language and literature, and spent years learning to read structure: how a system of signs holds meaning, where an argument breaks, why one arrangement works and another does not. That turned out to be engineering training in disguise. I read code the way I once read texts, attentive to intention and structure, and I approach architecture as a problem of meaning as much as mechanics. Over four years I have built a React and Firebase app for a CrossFit gym, my first client project; Angular products at Innovattia for Walmart; enterprise interfaces at Sngular; and now customer journeys at BBVA, composed from the bank’s Web Components and Lit catalogue for a banking app used by millions. I am also completing a Master of Applied Management at SIT, which has sharpened how I connect technical work to strategy, value, and the business it serves. My research is published here in full.

What I work with

My core is JavaScript, TypeScript, Web Components, and Lit; the last two are what I work with daily at BBVA, composing and extending the components of a shared design system. React is where I started, and where I am actively deepening now, alongside Next.js; NZ Drive Practice is built in React Native. This site is part of that practice: built from scratch, App Router, MDX, continuous deployment.

• TypeScript
• JavaScript
• Web Components
• Lit
• React.js
• Next.js
• Node.js
• Accessibility
• Design Systems

Life in Aotearoa

I wanted to build my career somewhere international and English-speaking, and New Zealand made a particular kind of sense: a small country that punches well above its size in technology, where Auckland holds its own as a genuine tech hub. Being here means being where things happen, without needing to be somewhere enormous to feel it. The decision was also a family one. We looked at several countries and chose this one because of what it offers for raising children: safety, calm, and a set of values we recognised. The closeness to the natural world was not a small part of it either. And something here rhymes with where I come from. Coming from Mexico, with its own deep pre-Hispanic cultures, I find something familiar in the way this country carries its Māori history and worldview. I am still learning, and I know how little I know, but the resonance is real. I have always felt like a citizen of the world. This is where that feels true.