Case Study · 1.5 min read

The Vault

Streaming Experience Clone

The Vault is a Netflix-inspired web application built with React, demonstrating frontend skills in creating a familiar streaming interface. This project focuses on UI/UX replication and API integration (YouTube for trailers) for educational purposes.

vault-theta.vercel.app ↗

Project Overview:

The Vault is a web application developed as a personal project to replicate the user interface and core browsing experience of popular streaming services like Netflix. Built using React, this project showcases expertise in frontend development, component architecture, state management, and integrating external APIs. It features a familiar UI for browsing content categories and viewing details. Important Note: This application is intended for educational and demonstration purposes only; it utilizes the YouTube API to display movie/show trailers and does not host or stream full copyrighted content.

Goals & Objectives:

The primary goal was to deepen understanding of frontend development by building a complex, interactive user interface mimicking a real-world streaming platform. Key technical objectives included: faithfully recreating the Netflix UI/UX using React, implementing dynamic content fetching and display based on categories, integrating the YouTube API for trailer playback, managing application state effectively (e.g., user selections, search results), and ensuring a responsive design for usability across different screen sizes.

Approach & Process:

  1. Requirements & Design (Discovery & Research): Analyzed the UI/UX patterns, component structure, and core features of Netflix and similar platforms. Defined the scope for the clone, focusing on browsing, content discovery, and trailer playback. Planned the component hierarchy and data flow within the React application.
  2. Development (Design/Development Phase): Built the application iteratively using React. Developed reusable UI components (carousels, modals, navigation). Implemented logic to fetch movie/show metadata (e.g., from TMDB or a similar API) and corresponding trailer data from the YouTube API. Focused on creating a responsive layout adapting to various viewport sizes.
  3. Testing & Iteration (Iteration): Conducted manual testing across browsers to ensure UI consistency and functionality. Refined component interactions and styling based on self-assessment and comparison to the source inspiration. Ensured API integrations were functioning correctly and handled potential errors gracefully.
  4. Launch & Maintenance (Launch & Delivery): Deployed the application to a hosting platform (e.g., Vercel, Netlify) for demonstration. Manage ongoing maintenance as needed (e.g., updating dependencies, ensuring API keys are valid).

Outcome & Impact:

The Vault successfully replicates key aspects of the Netflix browsing experience, serving as a strong portfolio piece demonstrating proficiency in React, frontend architecture, API integration (YouTube API, potentially TMDB), and UI/UX implementation. It effectively achieved the goal of building a complex, responsive frontend application and serves as a practical example of skills applicable to web development roles requiring modern JavaScript frameworks.

FAQ

Questions I get a lot.

Why go back for a CS degree if you were already at $170k?

Because the work had already outrun the paperwork, and I was tired of that gap. I’d walked away from two schools already — Baruch didn’t even offer a CS degree, and by BMCC I was already writing production code, so sitting through intro classes for a piece of paper felt backwards. I enrolled at WGU in 2024, kept the full-time engineering job, and finished the B.S. in August 2026. Third school. First degree, eight years later than the “normal” path. I wanted the foundation, and I wanted to close a loop I’d left open twice.

How did you get hired without a degree?

I showed work. The first scripts were for my dad’s business in 2017, automating the data entry that was eating his week. Columbia’s coding bootcamp gave me three months of full-stack JavaScript and a cohort in 2019 — a program that doesn’t even exist anymore. PLNETWORKS hired me in 2020 on a portfolio, not a diploma. After that, each role was about what I’d already shipped: production bugs, HIPAA software, storefronts. The degree came eight years later. It didn’t open the first door.

What actually moved compensation from $75k to $170k?

Two years of shipping at PLNETWORKS, then a move to Cazton that roughly doubled it, then BrightInsight in 2022 — HIPAA-regulated software at $170k. Same skills, different rooms. The market paid for proof. I treated interviews like case studies of work I’d already done, not like a plea for a first chance.

Where are you from, and where are you now?

I was raised in Jamaica, Queens. First thirteen years in an attic. I live in Hell’s Kitchen now. The city didn’t get bigger. I just moved west of the same story.

How do you actually use Cursor and Claude?

As a tutor and a pair, not as a ghostwriter. I still read the diff. I still throw away the parts that look clever and aren’t. The tools make the boring parts faster so I can spend the hours on the decisions that have to be mine.

What would you tell someone learning to code right now?

Build something your family can use. Put it in public. Don’t wait for a school to bless the start. I dropped out twice, then finished. Both of those were the right call at the time.