A Little About Me

The Work Stuff

I've worked as a software engineer for about a decade, primary in web development. While I'm capable poking around the whole stack, I'm most comfortable in the front end. I like to think about and appreciate the little details of software, while still balancing the bigger picture.

After starting out my career in a few SaaS companies, a desire for something more mission-driven work ultimately led me into civic tech, first with a vendor and now within government. My guiding philosophies are:

• Starting with why before what. Technology is rarely a solution in and of itself, just an enabler. A well-defined and well-explored problem begets a better solution. Start with goals and desired outcomes and work backwards from there.
• Keeping things as simple as you can reasonably achieve. Software engineering is all about managed complexity, i.e., complexity is typically inherent to the system. Code becomes tech debt the moment it's written.
• Strive for small cross-functional teams that have a shared understanding of their purpose. Organizational bloat is easier to add to than to take away from, so grow cautiously. Small teams can do a lot when they're empowered to.

The Non-work Stuff

A few personal things:

• I live in Minneapolis with my wife and two dogs.
• In the last five years or so, running has become a larger hobby, both for personal enjoyment as well as a way to engage with my community. I've been on the long and winding path recovering from a few injuries, but I continue to work towards getting back to running long distances.
• In the past, I've written and performed music. While my musical tastes and interests have evolved, I remain most captivated by weirder sounds rooted in improvisation, with various minimalism, ambient, drone, and electronic music catching my ears more in recent years.

I've never figured out how exactly to present myself online, but I'm working on fleshing that out more in this site. Stay tuned...