About
I am a senior full-stack developer in Baltimore, MD. I like to write code, design flexible and scalable systems, and solve problems.
Bio
I was born and raised in the Peach State (that's Georgia), and moved to Maryland in 2008. I got my first job helping my dad's software company move at age 15. Once they learned I could program, they hired me on as an intern. I spent the next several years in various internships until it was time for college, at which point I started studying to get a degree in computer engineering from a four-year university.
Unfortunately, higher education did not agree with me. I was too self-driven. After several honest-but-failed attempts at getting the degree, I decided the loans weren't worth the prize, and put my studies on hold. Fortunately, my motto has always been "Never Stop Learning", and so I never stopped studying, tinkering, and coding the entire time I was in school. I ended up with plenty of projects, experience, and knowledge that I gleaned from my peers.
Shortly after leaving college life behind I was offered a job at a tech startup and although they are no longer around, that job truly launched my career. Since then I've had the great fortune to work alongside incredibly smart and talented people at organizations large and small, honing and sharpening my skills along the way.
Experience
| 2005 |
Taught myself HTML and CSS to help my dad with his non-profit's website. |
|---|---|
| 2007 |
Learned PHP and MySQL so I could make websites for my friends and clubs I was in. Joined the Engineering Exploring Program at Lockheed-Martin and learned KISS-C. |
| 2008 |
Took Java I, II, and III as well as J2EE I and II at the local community college. Started experimenting with Ubuntu and Linux software development. |
| 2009 |
Got my first software internship writing Java/J2EE at DrFirst, an e-prescribing company. Was introduced to CakePHP by a coworker and instantly fell in love. |
| 2011 |
Got an internship as a web developer for the NIST Center for Neutron Research. |
| 2012 |
Enrolled in a computer engineering program at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Wasn't a good fit, transferred to community college after one quarter. Got an internship at Robotic Research, LLC working on robots and other secret stuff for the U.S. military Taught myself Python and Bash shell scripting, and started using Emacs. |
| 2013 |
Enrolled in a Computer Engineering program at the University of Maryland. Hated that the school was so big, transferred back to community college after one semester. Taught myself Sass, Node.js, and jQuery. |
| 2014 |
Decided to try my hand at creating a startup, and joined forces with my father to create CapitolRX. Learned everything I could about servers, DevOps, and enterprise application management. Taught myself Vagrant, Phing, TravisCI, Bitbucket, and Jira. |
| 2015 |
Got an internship and then a full-time position as a Software Developer at Intelligent Automation, Inc. working on more robots and more secret stuff for the U.S. military. Learned a crapload of C and C++, and switched to Vim. |
| 2016 |
Enrolled in a computer engineering program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Developed my first CakePHP plugin (cakephp-sparkpost-plugin) after Mandrill retired their free transactional email service, leaving developers everywhere in the lurch. Taught myself Composer, SemVer, and Packagist. |
| 2018 |
Joined the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department and obtained my Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certification. Withdrew from UMBC after 1.5 years in pursuit of better opportunities. Started work as a Full-Stack Developer at Akooba, Inc. Taught myself React. |
| 2019 |
Laid off by Akooba, hired as a Senior Software Developer by Quicken Loans. Got married to the love of my life 💘 Moved to Detroit, Michigan, USA! Learned Angular, Symfony, CircleCI, SonarQube, Twig, and many other technologies. |
| 2020 |
Decided we missed home, so started looking for jobs back East. Welcomed our daughter to the world (won't be long until I can sign her up for coding bootcamp 😉) Hired as a Senior Full-Stack Engineer by Orases Consulting. Moved back to Baltimore, MD to be closer to family. |
List of My Favorite Things
Because what about page would be complete without this?!
| Favorite movie 🎬 | Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994) |
|---|---|
| Favorite book or novel 📘 | Eragon, Book 1 of The Inheritance Cycle - C. Paolini |
| Favorite actor 👨🎤 | Christoph Waltz, so versatile! |
| Favorite actress 👩🎤 | Gwendoline Christie |
| Favorite hero 💪 | Iron Man |
| Favorite villain 😠 | Ozymandias 🧠 |
| Favorite 90s rapper 🎤 | Eminem a.k.a. Marshall Mathers a.k.a. Slim Shady |
| Favorite band or artist 🎶 | Daft Punk 🤖🤖 |
| Favorite programming language 🔣 | PHP 🐘🍰 |
| Favorite keyboard ⌨ | Razer BlackWidow Chroma |
| Favorite shell 🐚 | zsh, The Z-Shell, with oh-my-zsh |
| Favorite video game 🎮 | TESV: Skyrim by Bethesda Game Studios, with a silly amount of mods ⚔👑 |
I choose not to list my favorite editor in the list above for fear of starting a flame war. But go Vim ;)