Introduction

Hello there! Thanks for taking the time to learn more about my professional and personal life. My career history includes experience in diverse fields: Programming, Real Estate and Science Education!

Outside work you'll find me playing flexing my strategic brain with Magic the Gathering.
Frisbee Golfing, because despite working work with software, who doesn't like spending time outside?!
Or relaxing with friends 'n family!

Software Engineer II

I currently work on the Internal Applications team at Home Chef.
Some day-to-day tools I use include: Rails, RSpec, ActiveAdmin, React, Redux, GitHub, Heroku and CodeShip with a sprinkling of AWS (particularly S3). Team cadence is paired closely with industry Agile standards - daily standups, with bi-weekly sprint planning, retrospectives and the like.

Ah-em. Is this mic on? Can I get a drumroll please... big surprise, Home Chef is AWE-SOME.
But seriously, I am so, so lucky to have ended up at Home Chef. The company is fire. We are arguably the top meal kit company in the industry, and working at corporate in Chicago's newly renovated Old Post Office building is heavenly. No question, the tech team is the most diverse group I've seen. My teammates are stellar and most of all everyone is hungry to learn, and be learned!

R&D Engineer Intern

I was privileged to be a team member in HERE’s next generation 3D mapping data creation. A variety of tools were used to assist in the software development process. Some of these include: JS, Scala, Java, AWS - Redshift/S3/EC2, Jenkins, Gerrit, & Jira. Workflow with team members was in an Agile environment with daily standups as well as retrospectives and planning for sprints.

My first job out of a coding bootcamp, and it was a blast. My programming mastery increased by the day and I was surrounded by beautifully intelligent people. Check out what awesome work HERE is doing to build towards the autonomous world. Seriously. Give HERE a look. Spoiler - location data is powerful!

Teacher's Assistant & Student

My interest as a programmer came to full fruition upon my admission to Actualize’s 15-week coding bootcamp. I learned how to program from the ground up, using Ruby on Rails and Javascript oriented frontend development. After completing the bootcamp I began work as a teacher's assistant, aiding future developers attending Actualize.

Science Educator

I attended college at Northern Michigan University in the beautiful upper peninsula of Michigan. My degree: Integrated Science, Secondary Education with a Biology minor. In other words - high school science teacher.

I am enthusiastic about all things science and the role discovery and problem solving play in the growing youth of our society.

Actualize Capstone Project

The culmination of my learned skills at Actualize: MTG Hydra. The MTG in the title stands for: Magic the Gathering. The web application is aimed at fellow Magic players as a place to explore new or old cards, build decks, and share them with others. The application leverages a Rails backend framework, PostgreSQL database with several models and joint tables, a VueJS based frontend as well as a handful of APIs, including MTG for Developers, ChannelFireball pricing, and Microsoft’s OCR on the Azure platform. I’m excited to continue developing this project and intend to see it through to a live launch.

Hobbies

I am an avid MTG player and have been playing competitively since 2014. MTG is a competitive trading card game that's been around since the early 90s. I love how similar Magic is to programming and they both feel like a workout for my brain!

I frequent big tournaments throughout the Midwest. The picture to the right was taken at Grand Prix Milwaukee with my favorite Magic artist - Noah Bradley!

My new fascination is with Escape Rooms! I've completed a handful around Chicago and look forward to trying more. What's not to love? Collaborating with a team by solving a series of logic puzzles to successfully escape the room!