Staff Profiles: Sean

Technology is right at the center of everything we do, but Folklore is about people – or Folk as we like to say. Each quarter we’re featuring one of the many faces behind the Folklore name – who bring their incredible backgrounds, ideas and energy to our work, clients and teams every day. Next up: Sean Van Dyk, Executive Director of Technology.

I’ve always been fascinated by how things work under the hood. It started with video games when I was younger. I found I really wanted to understand the graphics, the logic, and the language behind them. I realized if you could figure that out, you could really manipulate and as they say now “mod” the games you were playing. That curiosity led me to learning code, “hacking” games, and even running a website in the mid-2000s selling cheats for online games. I was hooked by the development world, and that passion led me to develop a love for how systems talk to each other and how the global web ecosystem fits together. I guess I started with a single game and moved on to the wide variety of complex development and technology challenges we help clients manage at Folklore.

It was a tiny five-person shop called Grid Logic, where I focused on back-end engineering. Our company’s biggest client was Microsoft, and it began to feel like there was less opportunity to work on a variety of other brands and challenges, so after a while, I knew the writing was on the wall and decided I needed a move. I ended up taking a role at Modern Climate and worked on some fun projects with a great team of people, but after they were acquired, the direction began to change. My supervisor there had moved on to Folklore, and we started talking when the role of a permanent tech lead came up. The rest is history.

A lot of agencies “fake it till they make it.” They take a project saying they know exactly how to solve an issue or meet a challenge. That’s not us. We’re transparent with clients from the start. We roll up our sleeves and figure things out together with them. That’s a huge part of both our culture and our process: the act of solving together. Of course, sometimes we know what needs to be done, but more often than not it’s a matter of applying our diverse skillsets and wide experience to finding a really unique and custom solve with our clients. They appreciate the process. Most clients aren’t tech-savvy and often don’t have an internal team guiding their decisions. When we present options—CDNs, edge networks, architecture choices—it can all sound very vague. So instead of throwing jargon at them, we always try to give them clear, understandable paths forward. The combination of early transparency and trust in the process helps us build great solutions and great client relationships.

Development is increasingly driven by marketing pressure. With competition so high, every business wants more sales, more leads, and more revenue from their website. C-suite leaders are demanding it, or it’s coming from the board. For us and our work that can mean building digital experiences that aren’t just SEO-friendly, they’re blazing fast, seamless, and convenient with a must-do call to action. A good example is our client, Gills Tires. We rebuilt their site early in the year—and they came back to us within months wanting to rethink UX because performance now matters that much. Really, if your business depends on your website, you can’t let it get stale, ever. It’s crucial for brands to act quickly, because people’s expectations are changing all the time – it’s about fast mobile, always-on convenience. If a page doesn’t load, a link is bad or it’s difficult to find what you need, that customer is now gone for good. There was a study at Walmart a few years ago that showed when the brand cut their online “front door to checkout” time by two-thirds, sales went up by hundreds of millions of dollars. Faster tech equals higher expectations. Every time.

It was an amazing experience. From 2004 to 2010 I worked as an avionics mechanic on F-15s. The military paid for my schooling, and both of my parents served as well, so it was a natural path and kind of in the blood. When I was thinking about what to do after I got out, I thought I might go into law, but I discovered programming and pretty soon realized where I was headed. Thinking about it though, it’s really the same: both career choices (and the military too) are about understanding a big picture but focusing on the details, and the ability to work under pressure.

Avionics and back-end systems both require precision. And they both break if you cut corners

We’re going to keep feeling that pressure from marketing teams to move faster and prove impact. Websites need to be cleaner, clearer, and more conversion-driven than ever. UX will continue to be king—if the experience isn’t intuitive, users bounce. But UX is also becoming a crucial part of the customer experience, which is driving everything now, including brand preference. From an engineering perspective, the demand for speed—site speed, build speed, iteration speed—will only grow. And businesses that rely heavily on their digital storefronts will need to refresh constantly to stay competitive.

AI has already reshaped a lot of our and everyone’s workflows, especially around code review. It gives us instant insights and helps eliminate human error, which is huge because development is full of tiny, error-prone moments. AI can evaluate scenarios, test hypotheses, and draw from a massive knowledge base—much bigger than any one person or one company.

But AI is also overblown. Clients often feel pressure to “have AI” simply because competitors are talking about it, without any clear business case. That knee-jerk reaction can actually be counterproductive. There’s a risk of people relying on it too much and losing the human element. AI is powerful, but it shouldn’t replace critical thinking. We always say we’re about creating extraordinary digital experiences – but always for, and with people, at the center.