I coded my first "Hello World" web page in 1999.
I continued to create web pages and later sites for myself, friends, school projects, and clubs. Despite taking a few programming classes and occasionally doing contract work, I always considered it more of a hobby.
While working as an audio QA engineer at Speedy Spots, I got the opportunity to help create their "Spot Management System". SMS is a client-facing web app that facilitates processing orders, quality assurance, and a range of other business needs. I worked with the contractor, Inet Solution, to remap our paper-based business model to work online; my role was a mix of product manager and QA.
This really opened my eyes to the crazy world of software development. Kanban! Scrum! Launching a brand new product, and watching the first real users sign up! I was hooked.
After moving to New York, I joined the PhotoShelter client services team. PhotoShelter provides a range of services geared toward professional photographers such as cloud storage, portfolio websites, proofing and delivery. I helped customers get the most out of our web app, customize their sites with CSS and HTML, and troubleshoot DNS issues. A debugging tool I built for my client services team caught the eye of the head of engineering, who thought my skills might be better applied there.
Since then, I have been working as a full stack developer, splitting my time mainly between PHP and JavaScript. On the backend, I've helped introduce important new services, harden the application against XSS and CSRF attacks, grow our ability to test, expand and improve reporting, and push HTTPS adoption.
On the frontend, I've led the modernization of the member area, made fundamental improvements to the framework that powers our portfolio websites, and worked on product oriented teams to release new features.
I'm particularly interested in what security, performance, and accessibility mean to the future of web applications. I value lean methodologies, well-written tests, documentation, reliability, measuring everything, and a culture that empowers all members of a team to make meaningful contributions.