Development Timeline

From QBasic music programs to high-traffic React applications, here's how I got here. See my current skills and expertise.

My advice: Try different things to find what you like, get good at it, and repeat.

  • 1997 - programmed music in QBasic. Beep, bop, boop from the old Sound Blaster sound card!
  • 2002 - built my first website with HTML, CSS, and JS at college (music recording degree)
  • 2003 - configured DNS for my dad's website and email
  • 2004 - installed, configured, and built a website with Joomla and a MySQL database
  • 2005 - programmed CNC machines using G and M code and learned about automation. I automated all the machines to produce 3 times the output of the two other shifts combined! I ended up getting fired for being 5 minutes late to work.
  • 2006 - migrated several websites and databases to new hosts and servers
  • 2007 - read an old book on a concept called "relational databases" which inspired me to learn more about website architecture
  • 2008 - architected and built a service department CRM using Drupal, MySQL, and JS
  • 2009 - designed and developed a company website using WordPress, JS, and MySQL. Then began freelance development for various companies.
  • 2010 - advanced my SEO skills and won at Google with the company's two websites appearing 1st in searches!
  • 2012 - developed a logistics app with Ruby on Rails, JS, and PostgreSQL
  • 2015 - architected and developed a React web app and Ruby on Rails API to manage backline rental for festivals and events (a proof of concept to see if I could actually do it)
  • 2016 - moved to California to find a full time job in website development. Got hired in two weeks at a Fortune 500 company as a Lead Front-End Developer.
  • 2017 - built a web style guide and UI component library for the company's website
  • 2018 - worked part-time as a front-end developer on several single page applications running on Angular, PHP, and no SQL databases
  • 2020 - learned about data structures and algorithms (Knowing data structures is useful, Big O notation basics is useful to avoid blowing up your computer or crashing servers)
  • 2021 - started as a Senior Software Engineer for a company working on a React web app and Ruby on Rails backend
  • 2022 - full time as a freelance, full stack software engineer working mainly with React, Vercel, and various databases
  • 2024 - built and deployed a multi-tenant React/Next.js web app and continued developing my devops skills