# Erick Linares

> Senior digital experience and community strategy executive.
> I build community platforms and digital experiences that perform
> in the AI era — structured for humans and the large language models
> that increasingly mediate how people find answers.

## About

Erick Linares is a community platform architect and digital experience
leader with 14+ years of experience. He currently leads brand community
at Pandora (SiriusXM) and advises on AI-readiness architecture for
community and digital experience platforms.

His work sits at the intersection of community strategy, front-end
platform development, and generative engine optimization (GEO).

## Expertise

- Brand community strategy and platform development
- Khoros platform architecture, FreeMarker, LiQL, SCSS
- AI-readiness: llms.txt, semantic markup, verified knowledge layers
- Community gamification and member engagement systems
- Support operations and social care architecture
- Next.js, React, Supabase, Tailwind CSS

## Current Role

Head of Brand Community — Pandora / SiriusXM (2020–Present)
Leading platform development, community strategy, gamification systems,
and front-end implementation for Pandora's brand community on Khoros.

## Previous Experience

- SiriusXM — Social Care & Digital Experience (2019–2020)
- Fitbit — Community Strategy Lead & Brand Experience Supervisor
  (Dec 2014–Mar 2019)

## Projects

### Pandora Community (Live)
Large-scale brand community built on Khoros with gamification systems,
SCSS brand-token architecture, and FreeMarker/LiQL component builds.
URL: https://community.pandora.com/

### Fitbit Community (Live)
Khoros-based community platform for global Fitbit users — contributed
to platform architecture, front-end implementation, and community
operations.
URL: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Community/ct-p/EN

### NestHub (In Development)
White-label brand community platform for the AI era built on Next.js 14,
Supabase, Vercel, and Tailwind CSS. Features pgvector semantic search,
verified knowledge layers, and an llms.txt-first architecture.

### SiriusTrack (In Development)
React/Supabase web app that tracks SiriusXM recently played songs and
integrates with Spotify for playlist creation.

## Writing

- Why Your Community Needs an llms.txt
  URL: /writing/why-your-community-needs-an-llms-txt

## Contact

Email: elinares05@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericklinares
GitHub: https://github.com/elinares05
Site: https://www.ericklinares.co/