Engineer, designer, creator of things...

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. 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

I'm now a Senior Engineering Manager, after a bunch of years designing and writing code. Today my goal is more about 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

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

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

While it's still an active LLC, not much activity these days. But I'm always open to working with good people on a cool project, so get in touch if you think that's you!

2011—2015Igicom, LLC

Primarily client work, which was a great opportunity to learn via wildly different projects for top shelf clients. Widespread responsibilities, including front/back-end, mobile development, API and database design. Notable clients included AT&T, Comcast, Ford, Fortune Magazine, NYSE, and Time Inc.

2005—2011AS&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 UI/UX, Ruby/Rails, .NET, Java, "Ajax UI" (lol), and iOS development.

Skills

Engineering

Pragmatism, systems design, best practices

90%

JS / TypeScript

A necessity in modern applications

85%

React

UI framework of choice

80%

Writing

Proposals, tech specs, requirements

92%

Design

Ideation, visual hierarchy, aesthetics

85%

UI / UX

Responsive, CSS

90%

GraphQL

Schema design and implementation

85%

Agentic UI

MCP, LLMs

50%

Ruby / Rails

Over 20 years of experience

92%

Agile Development

SCRUM best practices

90%

Leadership

Engineering management, processes, growth

95%

API Design

REST, gRPC, GraphQL

88%

Database

Relational schema design, SQL

85%

Full-Stack

End-to-end implementations

90%

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(s) of Science in Computer/Electrical Engineering

Graduated in 2005, GPA: 3.6, 3.4

Did a lot of soldering and difficult (and I mean difficult) math. And boolean algebra! Making code control electronics was a lot of fun. Bonus: my senior year I wrote a 5 module OS in C++. Not something I use every day, but my problem solving skills certainly leveled up.