I am a Software Engineer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. When I’m not working I enjoy gaming, archery, mountain biking, watching anime, or just learning to do something new!
As an engineer, I love the magic of building something and seeing it come to life. I enjoy discovering my own solution to a problem, and figuring out the best way to implement it. Working with others who are more skilled than I am inspires me, and I always welcome the opportunity to learn and grow.
After 10 years in IT, I recently switched careers to software development because I really enjoy building things. After completing the full stack engineering immersive course through General Assembly, I was pleased to find that my IT experience translates very well into software development. In IT I was constantly required to learn new technologies and integrate disparate systems, and that skill has been invaluable in software development which shares many of the same challenges.
Check out the project gallery to see some of my work, and the About page for statistics on technologies I've used.
Project Distribution
Frontend
React
CSS
HTML
Full Stack
Django
JavaScript
Python
Backend
Express
Mongoose
MongoDB
SQL
I grew up in the Monterey Bay area near Carmel by the Sea. After I finished my BS in CIS, I spent ten years working in IT. Although I enjoyed many of the challenges presented in that space, I found that I wanted to be more involved in building and innovating. I've always enjoyed coding and decided to pursue a career as a developer in early 2022.
This site started as a class project meant to challenge students to build a page without using modern platforms and styling frameworks like React and Bootstrap. I took this as an opportunity to improve in the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Despite some frustration, I really enjoyed the challenges and the payoff in understanding that came from overcoming some of the problems that are normally solved for us with modern tools.
I'm particularly proud of the project carousel as it was built from scratch, is responsive across standard breakpoints, and features a nice animation when changing slides. I was able to have quite a bit of fun with slides themselves when I had the idea to make them look like cards from Magic the Gathering which I used to play. I also had fun learning to use CSS to build the circle graphs in the project distribution chart above.
Please enjoy the site! If you like what you see, feel free to contact me on LinkedIn.
A flexible reference app which allows users to create categories and upload content in the way that works best for them. Originally designed for notes, but can be used for anything from lists to record keeping and more!
"Knowledge itself is power"
- Francis Bacon in Meditationes Sacrae (1597)
A platform to browse and find details about popular TV shows.
Built on the TV Maze API.
"Well I'm bored . . . so what do you want to do now?"
- Anonymous couch potato
A social meetup app built around food. Make new friends who share a common interest, or just enjoy a meal in good company!
"Food is just less enjoyable when in the company of others."
- No one ever
This was my first project from the Full Stack Engineering Immersive program I took through General Assembly. It was a solid introduction to HTML, CSS, and JS and eventually became my live portfolio site.
I built this app for myself as I was nearing the end of my software engineering bootcamp course and was looking for a good way to store and organize all of the notes and reference material that I had accumulated at that point.
This was my first project using Django and was an excellent challenge given that the structure is such a departure from React. Once I got the hang of MVT vs. MVC however, it was actually a joy to work with given Django's deep built-in functionality. Some of the key hurdles that I faced during this project were centered around learning Django, as we only had the most basic introduction to setting up a Django app and creating functional views. Learning how to pass data between templates, how to use class based views which have so much going on under the hood, and how to set up a full stack application with a file server for file uploads were chief among them.
While I still prefer the flexibility of React for applications not centered around file storage and management, I do very much enjoy the utility that Django provides in this area.
A class project and my first foray into React as well as using a third party backend.
I really enjoyed spending time on this project exploring as many different avenues of functionality in React as I could squeeze into it. I'm particularly proud that I was able to effectively learn useReducer and apply it in a single function for all of my back end calls.
While I did have fun on this project, I was often frustrated by the challenge of using a backend that I hadn't built and which ended up dictating much of what I was able to present on the frontend. I was eager to move on to full stack applications where I could build and modify the backend as needed.
Meet 'N Eat is a full stack app that I built with a group of 3 engineers. This was a great exercise in teamwork and dividing up tasks efficiently while not drifting apart in design scope and making sure that deliverables built separately were able to integrate and work with the whole.
I was the SCRUM master for this project and it was definitely a growth experience. We were a bit ambitious in the scope of what we set out to do and weren't able to achieve everything that we wanted to in the one week that was allocated. We did however get together a few months later to add the features and functionality that we had hoped for initially. I learned a lot on this project about the value of planning and what it means to add functionality to an existing application.
Some of the original wireframes and planning documents for this site. I overhauled the look and feel later on but these were the basis for the initial version.
This began as a class project meant to challenge students to build a page without using modern platforms and styling frameworks like React and Bootstrap. I took this as an opportunity to improve in the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Despite some frustration, I really enjoyed the challenges and the payoff in understanding that came from overcoming some of the problems that are normally solved for us with modern tools.