Engineer, designer, creator of things...

I'm Ryan. I started designing websites and building applications (for real) around 2002. Learning to code spawned from the desire to bring my designs to life, but programming quickly became a passion. The creativity it fostered was (is?) very addicting. Plus, I love problem-solving. My current role pulls me away from code a bit, but adds a new kind of challenge. I'm very fortunate to love all aspects of what I do.

Experience

2021—Present: Senior Engineering Manager

I'm still at SolarWinds. After many years as a Staff Engineer, I've moved into Engineering Management, with a goal of helping my team(s) grow and ship better code, faster.

  • Meetings, meetings, meetings... Collaboration with product and other teams is essential.
  • Work with engineers to teach, build relationships, and shield from distractions so they can do their best work.
  • Process improvements, technical direction, feature planning, and a little bit of coding.

2008—Present: Formed Function, LLC

I created a business entity in which to do contract work. Projects range from design only, API development, mobile development, to fully deployed web applications.

  • A few notable clients: NASCAR, Papertrail, and non-profits such as WV Humanities Council.

2015—2020: SolarWinds

As a Staff Engineer and team lead, I tried to help make my team better, learning from those smarter than me in the process.

  • Day-to-day work typically involved Go, Ruby on Rails, TypeScript, JS/React, GraphQL, and some design talk.

2011—2015: Igicom, LLC

Primarily client work, which was a great opportunity to learn via wildly different projects for top shelf clients.

  • Notable clients: AT&T, Comcast, Ford, Fortune Magazine, NYSE, Time Inc.
  • Widespread responsibilities, including front/back-end, mobile development, API and database design.

2005—2011: AS&T, LLC

My first (and only) foray into government work... I led a small team through all sorts of web-related projects, from a simple CMS to biometric-GPS tracking applications.

  • Projects involved Ruby/Rails, .NET, Java, "Ajax UI" (lol), iOS development.
  • Led UI/UX design for all web-related projects.

Skills

Engineering

Pragmatism, systems design, best practices

95%

JS / TypeScript

A necessity in modern applications

88%

React

Framework of choice since 2018

85%

UI / UX

Creativity, visual hierarchy, CSS

90%

GraphQL

Schema design and implementation

85%

Ruby / Rails

Over 20 years of experience

92%

Agile / Leadership

Engineering management, processes, growth

95%

API Design

REST, gRPC, GraphQL

90%

Database

Schema design, SQL

85%

Education

Master of Science in Software Engineering

Graduated in 2007, GPA: 3.9

Lots of programming and software design models. Studied a bunch of processes and ways to build software. Also, Fred Brooks' Mythical Man-Month on repeat it seemed.

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

Graduated in 2005, GPA: 3.6

Boolean algebra! Making code control was a lot of fun. Very challenging stuff, but rewarding. Bonus: my senior year I wrote a 5 module OS in C++.

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

Graduated in 2005, GPA: 3.4

Did a lot of soldering and difficult (and I mean difficult) math. Not something I use every day, but my problem solving skills certainly leveled up.