My Developer Story

My interest in learning to code did not come to me like many others -- when I was 10 working to program my first game on the Commodore 64. It came to me much later in life. I think this helps me appreciate and savor it more. I had an IBM clone in high school (pre-internet days) with an 80 MB hard drive (you'll never use that much data). Sure, I poked around in MS DOS, created batch files and modified some of the programs I was using to understand them a bit more. At that time, it wasn't much more than a passing curiosity.

The spark that lit the fire for me was working in an office job doing construction estimating. I was a drywall contractor for 15 years mostly working out in the field. I had an opportunity during that time to work in the office and learn estimating. While I was there, I was asked more and more about their computer systems. I began helping as the defacto IT person. The more I did, the more I was asked to solved business problems which required scripting at first then grew into development tasks. I loved these challenges! When I realized I was far more excited about these peripheral tasks than my primary task of estimating, I knew I had to pursue this as a career.

I spent the next few years learning as much as I could, doing side projects and learning projects, and earning a degree in the field. In 2013, I was fortunate enough to impress a great company to give me a chance to join their team. I did not disappoint them and worked studiously to continue to improve and provide value.

In the intervening years, I have worked on projects from small to large. I have developed websites, databases, mobile applications, desktop applications and Chrome plugins. I've worked on small, medium and large size brown field and green field projects in small and medium enterprise environments.

I love the technology through and through. I also love working with customers and users to identify the issues that can be solved through the technology, implementing the solutions and delivering the results.

As a professional learner, I never stop seeking knowledge and working to master my craft. I see software development as I do the trades that I worked in for many years. I began as an apprentice. I'm working my way through journeyman status currently. I aspire to be a master in the future.