About
Thanks for stopping by my website. Below I've written what I hope gives you an idea of who I am, what I've done, and where I'm going.
Overview
For over 20 years I've worked as a software engineer dedicated to delivering high quality software and solving complex problems. The last 5+ years I've held multiple engineering management and leadership roles.
Build experiences, not software
My core mission is building diverse, high performance teams delivering the best software & experiences. We are customer/experience first thinkers that apply the engineering lens. Our decisions are impactful, needle forward actions pushing us towards success in the now and future.
Experience
[ Software Engineer: 20+ years | Engineering Manager: 5+ years ]
My main experience is developing full stack Node, Typescript, Javascript, React, and CSS. But I do enjoy Go, Python, Kotlin, AWS, and occasionally some poorly written Rust. Now a days I'm on the engineering management track leading small to large teams ranging from 5-25 engineers of various disciplines. Previously I've led teams using Node, Java, C#, PHP outside of the frontend.
My skill set shine working within the Product/Design/Engineering triangle with close-to-customer (B2C or B2B) products.
Companies I've been worked at in the past include DocuSign, Apartments.com, Active Campaign, Arrive Logistics, and OpenLane. Once upon a time I worked at agency completing projects for AT&T, Bosch, H&R Block, and Mazda to name a few.
XP Types & More Education
Industries: Real Estate, Logistics, Legal, Automotive, CRM/Marketing, Finance, Advertising, E-Commerce
Project Types: Finance, Accounting, Billing, BI, Data Visualization, Workflow Engines, ReactJS Migrations, Developer Productivity/Tooling, Defect Analysis, Data Ingestion, Realtime & Event Systems, Data Analytics, SDLC & Agile, Documentation
Additional Experience: Product Management, UX/UI Design, QA/Automation
Additional Education: LinkedIn Courses - Critical Thinking, Taking Charge of Leadership Conversations, How Leaders Can Motivate Others by Creating Meaning, Communicating with EQ
More information available on LinkedIn.
Other
Coaching & Volunteering
Coaching/mentoring is a true passion of mine. Spots are available! Previously I've worked with engineers ranging from junior to senior, staff, and even other technical leaders. Product owners and designers are more than welcome also! Let's build your career in technology together.
Mentoring Platforms: Plato, MentorCruise, Private Coaching
Volunteering: Upright Education, Startup Institute Chicago Teacher (Javascript), Chicago Javascript Camp Staff, Oral Cancer Foundation
React Loop Conference
ReactLoop is Chicago's only ReactJS conference that a few friends and I organized in 2019. We're looking for new collaborators and partners to bring it back in 2025.
Year 1: 250+ attendees (sold out!), 12 speakers, 2 keynotes, 5 sponsors, and 8 partner companies
The Longer Story
My background is cliche in some respects but my background started in hacking games, creating game art, and digital art.
In gaming I spent days on days hacking into Age of Empires decompiling DLLs, writing simple if/thens, and creating character art. One day my dad caught me using MS Paint dabbing pixel-by-pixel creating Achilles black Myrmidon armor based on the 2001 Troy movie with Brad Pitt.
He asked what I was doing and in turn introduced me to Photoshop which is my longest running skill set. What a lifesaver for my time and catalyst for what would become my future.
Getting older I started to move into digital art using Photoshop, Illustrator, and Cinema4D. My career as an artist didn't go nearly as far as my friends who became top tier artists but it was a great experience. If you've known me long enough you'll remember me from the IF Skin Zone and my forum Elite Graphics.
Those skills took me into freelance where I created websites, designed marketing/print, and went deep into Wordpress/LAMP stack. Arrogantly I even took my portfolio at 16 to apply for a design job at State Farm. They shot me down but it didn't matter.
It didn't stop me from continuing forward growing as both an engineer and designer.
What's important is the foundation was built and supported my future career every step of the way. I've been permanently influenced with an exceptionally passionate drive towards the best design and user experiences.
It took many years for my tagline "build experiences, not software" to come to life but it's been my core mission for longer than I can remember.