About Me

Skills

Languages, Frameworks, and Proficiencies

  • JavaScript (Node.js and browser JS)
  • TypeScript (a godsend after working in raw JavaScript)
  • React
  • MongoDB
  • SQL
  • SASS
  • Ruby on Rails
  • C++
  • C#
  • Java
  • GDScript (for game development in Godot)
  • HTML (seems obvious, but you never know)
  • CSS (again, seems like a given)

Soft Skills

Writing

I like to write! I got my Bachelor’s degree in technical communication, and I spent the first few years of my career writing API documentation and technical manuals. I’m proficient in writing clear, effective, accurate documentation.

Ownership and Quality

I take a lot of pride in delivering quality work, no matter what kind of work it is. If I ship code with a bug in it, I’ll own that mistake. I’ll happily fix it and learn from it, because I don’t want to make that mistake again.

Communication

Yeah, I know, everyone says they’re good at communication. But it’s actually true for me! Here’s a few specific examples of my communication style:

  • I genuinely want to understand other people’s perspectives. I actively listen and rephrase ideas to make sure I understand them.
  • I ask questions aimed at clarifying assumptions and clearing up potential miscommunication (before it spirals).
  • I speak up when I don’t understand something. I can’t learn if I don’t ask!
  • I use metaphor and analogy to relay technical topics with non-technical stakeholders. I try to keep it fun, too! Here’s how I explained a new bug introduced through a dependency upgrade:

Imagine a hamburger restaurant with an annoying customer. Every day, the customer orders a burger “with extra banana slugs.” The staff roll their eyes and say, “We don’t have banana slugs, but we’ll make the rest of your order.” The customer accepts this; they didn’t actually want banana slugs on their burger, of course.

Eventually, the management at the restaurant changes. New management tells the staff to stop putting up with the annoying customer: if a customer’s order doesn’t match the menu, don’t make the food!

The customer comes in and orders their usual, a burger with extra banana slugs. The cashier stares directly into the customer’s eyes and says, “No. Order your damn food like a normal person, or get out.”

Our app is the annoying customer here, and Mongoose (the interface between our app and our database) is the restaurant. We’re asking Mongoose to give us data about a review question. But since we wrote the code, the menu has changed! So now we’re requesting some normal data (a burger) and also nonsense data that isn’t even on the menu (banana slugs).

The previous version of Mongoose put up with our shenanigans, but the new version gives us no data at all.

So this problem is easy to solve when we find it: just stop asking for banana slugs. But finding all instances of this problem across our app will take more time and effort.

  • My co-workers from that job still talk about the “banana slug” analogy, so it seems like it made an impact!

Trivia

  • I live-streamed video games on Twitch for about three years, pulling together a sizeable community of very kind, very silly people. I learned a lot about video editing (fun!), community management (not my forte!), and improv comedy (fun, but I should practice more).
  • I worked in a tire shop for a couple of years. It was hard work, but I did a damn good job! I gravitated towards the storage area: every spare moment not spent changing tires, I worked to keep our stock of 1,000+ tires organized, navigable, and in-sync with our computer inventory.
  • I love dogs. Cats are jerks, but they’re cute jerks, so they get a pass.