About

I'm a software engineer that is passionate about continuously learning, applying what I learn and sharing with others.  I believe meaningful software is created as "a team sport"; meaning that it takes talented individuals working within a team to develop great software. I like being part of that team either working as an individual contributor or a team lead.  

I've listed below some of the recent technologies I've been using. However, I believe one of the greatest strengths of any good software engineer is to continually learn:  new languages, technologies, and techniques.  Simply saying that a software engineer has 20+ years of experience means nothing if they've been doing the same thing year after year.

Technologies

- Angular/Typescript, Node, PWA, NgRx, RxJs
- C++: 11 (learning C++20)
- Docker
- AWS Cloud: S3, ECS/Fargate, CloudFront, Route53, EKS
- GitLab: CI/CD pipelines, Git, Wiki
- Linux
- Agile development methodologies
- UI/UX: Figma, UX/UI design

Side Projects

My current side project is UX/UI design, development of an Angular/PWA application that allows users to register, create a user profile, and create a risk assessment for UAV operations.  It utilizes Google's Firebase authentication and storage. The UX/UI design was done using Figma.  It is being created using Angular 10 with NgRx, RxJS, etc.  It will utilize the GitLab CI pipeline to allow it to be deployed and hosted automatically to Firebase, although it could also be posted and supported via AWS S3 and MongoDB.

Current Interests

I'm having fun with the idea of "Dockerize all the things". I've worked on developing a workflow that allows me to use Docker in about any environment: Angular, Node, C++.  I gave a 20 minute Lightning Talk to our Denver C++ Meetup in December 2020 that can be found online.  

Cloud infrastructure, design, implementation are also fun and interesting topics. I'm studying to take the AWS Cloud Solutions Associate exam and I have already identified other Cloud topics that I want to pursue: security, developer. I believe certifications are good for me because they force me to sit down and get a broad overview of what is available so that I can take advantage of the right tool.

Experience

I've been fortunate enough to have worked in a variety of industries inside and outside of software.  I've written software for everything from government DoD projects, to high frequency trading, to small startup web companies.  I'm a retired Army National Guard officer, helicopter pilot, and worked in a U.S. Embassy for two years.  I also helped create a UAV company that performs electric utility inspections to improve the efficiency and safety for electric linemen.  Having built and lead a company for the past 5+ years, I appreciate and empathise with the business owner or manager with all of the challenges that brings: sales, marketing, hiring, training, retaining the best talent.