whoami?
I first learned to code in Basic during a summer school course when I was 11. Yes, I was that nerdy kid. Through middle school and high school I would sit at the computer learning more about code and operating systems. In college I learned languages such as C, C++, Fortran, LISP and Prolog. Java was not yet part of the curriculum.
In college I also worked with a team of students that would create pages for the school's website by gathering details from different departments and writing the HTML out in text editors. This was just a summer job on campus, but was the first time I was paid to write code.
My first post-college job was working at a small local tech company in NJ, creating websites for clients. It was here that I started learning about how to make pages more dynamic and interact with the backend. Through cgi-bin and perl scripts, to PHP with MySQL, I was able to create customized sites for clients.
At the next company, I became an integral part of a team working on an enterprise web application. This involved a lot of Database architecture and application design. I learned a lot about working with a team of developers and how we could write reusable chunks of code to handle things like database CRUD. I would also write perl and PHP scripts to automate tasks in cron jobs as well as adding javascript to the frontend.
I would then move on a small office in Westchester County, NY that was part of a larger company. My employer was Ask Jeeves, (aka Ask.com), but we were involved in smaller consumer applications. This is where I really started to get into the fronted. New javascript frameworks like Dojo, Ajax frameworks were the new hotness and we were all rushing to build out new apps with it.
I've seen a lot of different technologies and frameworks over the years. jQuery and bootstrap gave way to React with Typescript. Build tools like gulp and grunt gave way to webpack and now vite. All along the way I made sure to immerse myself in these tech stacks.
My real passion is in the UI/UX. I love to create beautiful, functional, and accessible websites. I've become a CSS nerd and I'm always looking for new ways to use it. My focus is in building mobile-first, responsive layouts.