Hello Group!
This submit is my software for the open Workers Software program Engineer place.
A Bit About Me
I am a software program engineer from Omaha, NE (USA) with BS levels in Electrical Engineering and Pc Engineering from College of Nebraska and an MS in Pc Engineering from Carnegie Mellon. For the final 9 years, I have been self-employed operating a bootstrapped software program firm, Unstack Software program. My aim has been to construct, purchase, and run a portfolio of small SaaS and content material companies (extra on that later!).
I’ve 3 youngsters (ages 6, 4, and a couple of) and a 4th on the way in which. As a solo-founder of 9 years with a younger and rising household, I am very used to (and take pleasure in) having a busy way of life with plenty of transferring components. Our favourite factor to do collectively is take lengthy street journeys to the mountains to go mountain climbing. We have completed journeys of 37 days and 41 days, youngsters in tow, and all whereas I managed my enterprise and crew.
Mountaineering Drugs Bow Peak in Wyoming
Sure, my timezone (Central) is off by 1 hour of your most well-liked timezone, however having managed a worldwide crew (ranging anyplace from Brazil to Serbia to Japan) for the final 9 years, I’ve no downside accomodating for and dealing with individuals from vastly completely different timezones.
I am additionally comfy with the contractor standing, as I already pay for my very own medical insurance and retirement plans.
However Why Rent Me?
I’ve packed a complete profession value of expertise within the final 12 years or so. A number of highlights:
- Throughout my masters diploma at Carnegie Mellon, I labored on their lunar rover mission for the Google X Prize, which spun off into Astrobotic and simply made their first launch try to the moon a number of weeks in the past.
- Additionally in my masters, I co-created Pixy and efficiently raised virtually $275k on Kickstarter. Pixy is now bought at most main on-line electronics retailers.
- Throughout my time at Sandia Nationwide Labs, I shifted extra in the direction of a software program focus and labored on a wide range of tasks, together with satellites, communication programs, and extra.
- After leaving Sandia in 2015, I began and bootstrapped Unstack Software program the place I have been beginning, buying, and operating software program merchandise, each solo and with a crew.
- I began Stack Abuse (the location you are on now!) through the launch of Pixy in 2013 and have been actively rising it since 2015. At our peak, SA had over 1.5 million month-to-month guests, 5 full time workers, and we managed dozens of contract writers.
- I acquired Block Sender, rewrote every thing, and grew it from a number of hundred customers to over 60,000 customers at present. It is probably the most technically difficult merchandise I’ve labored on and may very well be a case research for studying the right way to cope with edge circumstances and conflicting buyer wants.
The factor I am most trying ahead to on this position is the problem of studying new expertise and contributing to a product that I actually love. I actually imagine that your greatest work is finished whenever you’re straddling the road of consolation and discomfort, which this position would do for me. I could not examine all of the containers (i.e. lack of expertise in Rust and Accessibility), however my complete profession has been about studying no matter talent it’s that I must get issues completed – whether or not it is studying new languages, frameworks, the right way to handle a crew, the right way to handle clients, or something in between.
As I tweeted a number of months in the past, Tailwind has been an unimaginable educating instrument for me. It has taught me extra about CSS in the previous couple of years than I discovered within the first 10. I imagine that I can use my distinctive expertise and perspective to assist make Tailwind extra accessible to a broader vary of builders.
Technical Expertise
I take into account myself a full-stack developer and virtually solely use JavaScript for all of my tasks. My most well-liked stack is AWS, Node.js, Subsequent/React, Tailwind, and PostgreSQL. In a earlier life I wrote a whole lot of Python, Java, and C/C++, however I’ve primarily used JavaScript for the final 8 years. I have been desperately on the lookout for an excuse to be taught Rust, however I promise I am making use of to this job for extra than simply that 😉
A number of issues I am pleased with:
- Stack Abuse’s Course Platform: Along with the customized CMS, I additionally constructed a full course platform for Stack Abuse that has been utilized by 1000’s of scholars. It is constructed with Subsequent.js, Tailwind, and PostgreSQL. That is the place I received my first style of Tailwind and have been migrating my tasks to it ever since. At its peak, this platform was serving over 100,000 customers per day.
- Block Sender’s Backend: This was a small app I acquired in 2016 and utterly rewrote from scratch. Thus far, it is processed over 750M emails, which taught me a terrific deal about engaged on programs that must scale. I additionally constructed a easy dashboard and Chrome extension for our 60,000+ customers.
- Camo, my first open supply mission: What began as a enjoyable mission to be taught Node and Doc DBs 9 years in the past become a semi-popular ODM with over 550 GitHub stars. Whereas I am unable to say I am tremendous pleased with the technical points (in spite of everything, it was my first Node mission), it did train me rather a lot about managing open supply software program and dealing with customers and contributors.
- Matrix, my private bot platform: As a small crew, we wanted to be as quick and environment friendly as attainable, which meant automating as a lot as we may. I constructed a bot platform that made it simple to write down and deploy instruments that might deal with time-consuming periodic duties. For instance:
- Monitor Reddit and HN for mentions of any of our merchandise.
- A instrument to examine our 1500+ articles for damaged hyperlinks, damaged photos, spelling errors, poor formatting, and many others.
- Sync buyer knowledge to our grasp electronic mail listing.
- Make periodic backups of sure knowledge.
The customized CMS I am scripting this on. You may most likely discover some early Tailwind UI elements in there!
Observe: I ought to level out that my GitHub profile’s exercise shouldn’t be consultant of the quantity of programming I do. Whereas virtually all of my tasks use git model management, I do not host most of them on GitHub.
Management
I have been main groups for the final 6 years, along with the code I write. The roles ranged from digital assistants to editors/writers to builders. Try Stack Abuse’s About Us web page to see a number of the superb individuals I set to work with! Of the 120 workers displayed on that web page, I personally employed over half of them.
Writing
Since founding Stack Abuse, I’ve written/edited over 450 articles and edited 6 books. Listed here are a number of of my favorites:
Wish to dig deeper into any of the books listed above? Simply let me know and I am going to get you entry to the course variations.
Enjoyable and Ineffective Details
- My spouse and I’ve been avid CrossFitters for the final 9 years. Health is my third ardour after household and work.
- I share Adam’s love of metallic – all of my productiveness could be attributed to bands like Soilwork, Darkest Hour, Software, and Korn.
- My workplace is on a farm. Like an precise farm. Our household has run an organization within the ag house for the final 130+ years. I am lucky to have the ability to lease workplace house from them and escape the noise at house.
- My private greatest Rubick’s dice resolve is 42 seconds 🤓
