Bret Little
Staff Software Engineer at Shopify
North Berwick, Maine, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolBret Little is a Staff Software Engineer with 14 years of experience building front-end-first, developer-friendly web platforms and e-commerce frameworks. Currently at Shopify he contributes to Hydrogen, improving search, localization, and storefront efficiency for large-scale headless commerce. Previously he led architecture and a 10-person team at Salesforce to design next-gen storefronts, SSR strategies, and component discovery workflows, and as an early Canopy engineer he built core product foundations including a dynamic web-form and PDF system for complex tax logic. An active open-source contributor, Bret has enhanced widely used projects like single-spa and react-helmet-async, bringing practical fixes for browser quirks and Server Components compatibility. Based in coastal Maine, he pairs hands-on full-stack engineering with community engagement—regularly speaking at meetups and conferences—and a knack for bridging design, marketing, and engineering to sharpen user experience.
14 years of coding experience
15 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelors of Science, Applied Physics Computer Science Emphasis, Bachelors of Science, Applied Physics Computer Science Emphasis at Brigham Young University
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
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Github Skills (24)
javascript10
routers10
jes10
typescript10
router10
user-interface10
wpgraphql10
shopify-hydrogen10
remix10
front-end-development10
helm10
jestjs10
wordpress-graphql10
typescript-types10
jtest10
Programming languages (13)
Github contributions (5)
Shopify/hydrogen-v1
Nov 2021 - Jan 2023
React-based framework for building dynamic, Shopify-powered custom storefronts.
Role in this project:
Front-end Developer
Front-end DeveloperContributions:3 releases, 379 reviews, 257 commits in 1 year 2 months
Contributions summary:Bret primarily contributed to the development and maintenance of the Hydrogen framework. Their commits focused on improving error handling, making URL search properties accessible via `useLocation()`, and modifying the codebase to support API routes. Furthermore, the user made updates to various components and tests within the project, indicating active involvement in front-end development and debugging. The contributions aimed at enhancing the user experience and ensuring the proper functionality of the framework.
reactpolarisecommerceshopify
Shopify/hydrogen
Sep 2022 - Mar 2023
Hydrogen lets you build faster headless storefronts in less time, on Shopify.
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:373 reviews, 83 commits, 215 PRs in 5 months
Contributions summary:Bret focused on implementing and refining search functionality within the Hydrogen storefront. They implemented a search page, including the data fetching and the UI components. The user added localization features to the application and addressed a variety of fixes and improvements. The user also migrated several pages to the `context.storefront.query` function for improved efficiency and maintainability.
hydrogenreactremixshopify
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