Who I Am

I'm not a CS or EE or math or STEM grad, I majored in Philosophy. I also never went to a bootcamp. All of my development skills are self-cultivated because I really like programming.

I am a problem solver. Not a mathematician or a computer scientist. My career until now has consisted of solving problems quickly and efficiently, from technology issues to inefficient algorithms. I have built static sites in GatsbyJS, interfaces in WPF, and web scrapers in Python. I've written data readers in C and system code in C++. I've worked on Machine Learning systems, web applications, and testing tools. I once built an arduino-based PID controller for a popcorn popper to roast my own coffee before every trying C++ or embedded programming.

I am an "expert" in Python, though that term rubs me the wrong way. I am proficient in C and JavaScript, learning C++, and have written code in C#, Scheme, and Bash. I am familiar with Scikit-Learn, Flask, ReactJS, and SQLAlchemy. I once started working on a project written in a language I'd never dealt with (C#), using an IDE I'd never opened (Visual Studio), and a paradigm I'd never tried my hand at (desktop applications), and was building new modules within a fortnight. In the paraphrased words of one of my managers, I may not be able to write the most efficient fast fourier transform, but I can probably figure out a technical solution for a given problem faster than the next guy.

All of this should also demonstrate that I am a full time learner. I have spent enough time learning new things that I have full confidence in my ability to learn new things. But most of all, I am a thoughtful programmer. I think twice about abstraction or hard coding, I think about tech debt and the way users will interact with a feature. I question whether the most expedient-path is what's called for, or whether it will lead to more pain down the road. When I'm writing code in the present, I'm thinking about the future.

As for my personal life, I'm omnivorous in my interests. Whether it be mastering espresso, mixing acidic solutions for the perfect cocktail, caring for sick orchids, or learning another language to appreciate a particular cinema culture, I bring the same level of technical excellence to everything I do.