I bring a wealth of leadership and technical acumen, along with a strong passion for creating performant, user-friendly products. My background in community engagement, open-source and commercial projects, as well as developing features and leading teams, makes me an ideal candidate for a plethora of roles and teams.

Early Life

Fresh out of highschool in 2011, I was encouraged to pursue a degree in engineering. This led me down the college application rabbit hole, winding up in Florida at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) where I pursued a degree in aerospace engineering. My intent was to focus on propulsion systems. After 18 months of calculus, I realized we would never be friends. Seeking a new direction, I transferred to an industrial design program.

With the degree change also came a literal degree change. The industrial design program I got into was in Chicago at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) where I would eventually earn my BFA. While I enjoyed Chicago, when I graduated at the end of 2016 I moved to NYC to pursue a larger job market.

New York, 2016

After two years of traipsing around NYC, not finding the work I wanted, I transitioned into software development. After three months of self-taught coding to meet the bar of applying, then a grueling two months of twelve hour days, six days a week, I completed the AppAcademy course in June of 2018. Since then I have been working in front-end web development. However, with the post-COVID job market crash and my general derision being an engineer in the tech scene, I am looking for new career paths, especially in technical leadership.

COVID, 2020

I watched with the world as COVID dragged us into hell. Early in January I had just started working for the NYC Federal Reserve, one of the lucky few with a well-paying desk job that became remote. By March, New York City became a ghost town. You could land a 747 on Broadway in Manhattan and not hit a fly. Shortly into March I was serendipitously connected with a California-based group in the midst of forming that would soon be called Open Source Medical Supplies.

Look for the helpers

Working with Open Source Medical Supplies (OSMS) was a particularly profound time in my life. Perhaps it was the shared calamity bringing out the best in us, but never before or since have I had the chance to work alongside such compassionate, intelligent, and resourceful individuals. For my part, I helped develop and build a platform that disseminated critical healthcare information during the COVID-19 pandemic. This undertaking reinforced for me the importance of user-centered design, accessibility, and the role that technology plays in supporting communities globally. This type of meaningful work inspires me to the kind of projects that improve lives by leveraging technology to tackle complex, real-world problems.

California, 2020

For many reasons, like the thrill of moving into a new apartment crushed by the inexplicable loneliness of COVID, the suffocating financially-focused job market of NYC, and the new friends I made through OSMS, I left New York in November of 2020. Screaming across the country in three days due to last-minute COVID-related scheduling issues and making a month-long detour in Los Angeles, I arrived in Oakland by Christmas.

During my time in the bay, frankly, I worked for what felt like one poorly managed company after another, but that's easy to say with only one side of the story. Conversely, I had wonderful moments with new friends and groups such as Ace Makerspace, Punks With Lunch, and The Flaming Lotus Girls.

Fashionphile

In my most recent position as a Senior Software Engineer at Fashionphile, I led the development of intuitive and responsive user interfaces for a high-volume web application, focusing on enhancing the user portal for sellers and streamlining reimbursement workflows. Additionally, I worked across several teams to prioritize and deliver on complex, domain-specific tasks that they lacked, which further honed my ability to communicate effectively and collaborate across different skill sets.

Outreach

While living in Oakland I made time to engage with my community. Three groups I spent time with were Punks With Lunch, a homeless outreach group, Ace Makerspace, a community fabrication space, and The Flaming Lotus Girls, a female-led art collective focusing on large, fire-shooting, metal sculptures.

PWL

Working with Punks With Lunch was a brutally rewarding experience. Twice a month I would spend the day working with others to travel around West Oakland helping those experiencing homelessness, or otherwise disaffected, by handing out food and other necessary supplies. We saw people, and I say 'people' as the collective whole of humanity and not any given group of individuals, at their worst. Some had mental health problems, some had drug problems, but many had simply fallen through the cracks of a broken system that didn't care to fix itself, let alone catch them. We did our exhaustive best, many of the volunteers work in social services for their day jobs as well, but it felt like a box of bandages on a gaping wound. There's only so much you can do at that level; there's only so much you can squeeze out of a person.

AMT

Ace Makerspace on the other hand was much more of an active part of any given week. I started out managing a small machinist shop as part of the larger space. After a year of volunteering my time I was brought on as part-time staff to manage a larger chunk I called "Dirty Fab" which encompassed the machinist shop, a full woodshop, and the laser cutter studio. It was also named in contrast to "Clean Fab" which encapsulated 2/3D printing and electronics tinkering. My new role encompassed the management of the three spaces, a dozen volunteers between them, as well as engaging with individuals teaching classes whether for safety or a specific project, and supporting the community at large. During my time there the spaces were dramatically improved in efficiency, safety, and approachability. I developed and oversaw improvement projects such as rearranging machinery for process flows, expanding safe working areas around various machinery such as table saws, and expanding dust collection and monitoring systems to promote healthier working environments.

FLG

Trying to talk about my time with the Flaming Lotus Girls is one of those "you needed to be there" moments; we created art to bring to Burning Man; I fell in love with the hottest flame you've ever seen; tell me about the genii in a bottle you found and how you had to let it go.

The first year I was with FLG was also the first year they were back at Burning Man, post-COVID. I was put in co-charge of welding together hundreds of pounds of steel into 10 by 20-foot origami boat skeletons to float in a Sea of Dreams. Months went by. Art emerged from a cacophony of welding sparks, grinding, and swearing. You could drain the bay and overflow it with our combined blood, sweat, and tears. We went to Burning Man. We set the night on fire.

The second year with FLG as things started ramping up for the burn, I learned my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I knew I had to leave the bay and help my parents. If I could tear myself in half I would have. The choice nearly did. While planning my departure, I volunteered / was elected to lead the efforts for repacking a smaller version of a previous year's build, Mutopia. I labeled everything and packed each bit and bob just so. We packed every inch of a 25-foot box truck with steel and care. They left for the burn. I kept packing and left a week after they came back.

Philadelphia, 2024

I've always enjoyed the cold of the north, but after the bay, it really sunk into my bones. What was supposed to be a temporary accommodation of living with my parents has stretched into nearly two years of job hunting. I've worked some odd-jobs, but I have never gone more than two weeks between tech jobs in the past. The post-COVID tech schism has certainly affected me. I've kept busy, somehow. Rebuilding my website to this iteration is one of the ways. In November, I helped put on a production of the Yamatorium, an experimental, indie-pop group. I've made some new friends here and started volunteering with a group called Philly Community Wireless, who are actively working on bringing public-access wifi to those most in need within Philadelphia.

2025

The year started not with a bang, but with a whimper. Who knows what it holds?