I consider myself fortunate to have consistently held positions that have given me the freedom to make design decisions and implement solutions over the course of my career. I started identifying problems and crafting software solutions starting at my very first job, even when it wasn't what I was hired to do.
In my capacity as a web developer, I've had the opportunity to:
Participate in all phases of the application lifecycle from initial design to implementation, as well as on-going maintenance, bug fixes and progressive enhancement.
Work on a variety of applications, including manufacturing and fulfillment, customer service, inventory management, bookkeeping, payroll and timekeeping, employee scheduling, as well as many data-driven marketing web sites.
Gain exposure to all levels of the technology stack by architecting and setting up databases, configuring web servers, creating API's for data access, writing back-end processes to manage data and workflow, and designing and implementing user interfaces.
Collaborate with non-technical users and more technically inclined product owners to understand business needs and how technology can address them.
Document applications and procedures for both technical and non-technial users.
The experience I've gained as a result of my particular job history has helped me to become a practical yet creative developer, with a strong sense of personal accountability. I've been allowed to operate with a level of autonomy that has fostered self reliance and self motivation. Read on to learn a little bit more about how I got where I am today.
Work Experience
FansTel, Inc.
After graduating from school with a B.A.S. in Electronics Engineering, I got my first industry job at a small family run telecommunications company, FansTel, Inc. I was hired as a repair technician to troubleshoot and repair hardware. During my time there, we were contracted to supply free caller ID devices to customers that signed up for service with a large east coast phone company. We started receiving data from the phone company, and we had to do something with it. In what I now see to be a stroke of good fortune, the owners said yes when I said I could set up a database to import and manage the data coming in, even though I had not done this before. Using an early version of MS Access I was able to create a process to import the data , clean it up, and set up label printing for the outgoing product.
In addition to fulfillment, part of the contract was to provide customer service for the devices we shipped. I took it upon myself to create an application to help manage customer service. We already had built a database of customers from the data we received which provided a base to work from. Using MS Access's built-in form capabilities and some Visual Basic code, I was able to put together a system that improved the efficiency of our customer service agents and streamlined the repair / replacement process. At this point I hung up my soldering gun for good and had started down a different path.
Looking back, I believe that this job was critical in shaping my self-reliant attitude towards application development.
R+R Resources
After my time at FansTel, I made the decision to move from Phoenix to Seattle. Honestly, this was not a decision that was given a great deal of consideration. I was young and did not know any better, so I packed up and moved to Seattle without a job lined up. Fortunately I found a position within a few weeks, again with a small company. This time though I applied as a database administrator / application developer. R+R worked with high schools to run fund-raising campaigns offering magazine subscriptions. My role here was more focused on data: managing databases, importing and scrubbing data, and writing reports. I had the oppurtunity to work with a contract software developer that wrote and maintained in-house software for the organization. It was here that I leveled up from MS Access and Visual Basic to MS Sql Server and C# / Visual Studio.
Digital Odyssey
After working at R+R for a couple of years, I left in search of a position that would allow me to lean in to application development a bit more. Three of my friends and I started Digital Odyssey, a web design + build shop. At Digital Odyssey I was the primary developer. We attracted several clients and found some success. I did most of my work during this period in PHP, MySql, and HTML / CSS. The decision to deviate from Microsoft products for development was mostly practical, the alternatives were cheaper and more readily available to us as a small business. I was also excited about the oppurtunity to work with something new. Most of our projects were small e-commerce shops or marketing web sites. After a couple of years of doing this, the constant hustling for work started to wear on me and I wanted to find something more stable.
Anthony's Restaurants
Through connections made at Digital Odyssey I next found myself at Anthony's Restaurants. The owner was unhappy with the available software solutions and was looking for someone to develop some custom applications (read more here). The restaurant industry is dynamic, and this created an interesting and challenging environment to work in. With multiple remote locations, web-based applications were a natural fit. I enjoyed working directly with the users of the applications I was creating, it's a great feeling seeing your applications get used and solving problems.
The IT department at Anthony's consisted of 2 people, a developer and a network administrator. At one point, when I had multiple projects going and the current network admin decided he'd like to get more into development, I was given the opportunity to act as mentor and work with him to get up to speed. I got lucky, as he had an aptitude for it. Having worked as independent developer, I enjoyed the opportunity to work on projects with another developer. He eventually replaced me when I decided to move on from Anthony's.
In addition to my development work, I also had the chance to perform other duties while at Anthony's. Working in such a small team supporting the corporate office and almost 20 restaurants, I also functioned as technical support, de-facto systems administrator when needed, I even helped set up a few new restaurants running cables and setting up hardware.
Channel Ready, Inc
While Anthony's was a stable, full-time position, I was employed as a contrator. After nearly 10 years there I was wanting to get out of contracting. One of my partners from Digital Odyssey connected me to Channel Ready. I started working there in October of 2011 and have been there since. A small boutique web design and multimedia firm, they were looking to modernize their custom-written client web site management system. I worked directly with the owners to re-design a system from the ground-up (read more here) to allow their varied clients to manage their own web sites. Sort of like WordPress, but with highly customized front-ends. It was fulfilling to see the project from conception through to implementation.
In May of 2023 they made the decision to begin winding down the business.
I'm grateful to have found myself in stable positions that provide enough variety and challenges to keep things interesting and to allow me to learn new skills. I'm looking forward to whatever may come next. Thanks for reading!
Technical Skills & Proficiencies
Languages C#, PHP, Javascript, TypeScript, HTML/CSS/SASS, SQL, GraphQL
