About

Hey there, here’s some more information about me.

Blog
Career History
Travel
Fitness
Chess
Guitar

Blog

I use this website to write about things I’m interested in. Some of it is notes to myself so I can refer back to it later, some of it is longer form.

Sometimes Cool Owl™ will ask questions. I find it helps explain things if I use a conversational style of writing.

Did you rip cool owl from fasterthanlime’s cool bear?

Yes. Also anyone interested in programming should read his blog.

Career History

Senior Software Engineer | Axon | Oct 2022 - May 2023

Typescript, React, Azure, Kubernetes

Tech lead in a team of 8 engineers
Working on decoupling a large frontend app

Senior Professional Tinkerer | Home | Oct 2022 - May 2023

Rust, SaaS, Typescript, NextJs, Astro, AWS, hiking, walking, recovering

Engineering Manager | Snap | Jan 2022 - Oct 2022

Engineering manager for a team of 9
Contributed to 2 rounds of performance reviews
Continued to lead the technical direction of https://my.snapchat.com/

Senior Software Engineer | Snap | Jan 2017 - Jan 2022

Full stack, Scala, Java, Go, Typescript, Javascript, NextJs, GCP, AWS

Full stack engineer developing a content management system for publishers to get their content into Snapchat discover feed
Tech lead for a public facing tool for users to upload their content - https://my.snapchat.com/

Software Engineer | Duco | Jan 2016 - Dec 2016

Full stack, C++, Java, Ruby on Rails, Coffeescript

Working as part of a team developing features for a reconciliation service

Software Engineer II | Amazon | Aug 2012 - Dec 2015

Embedded software, C++, Python, highly multi threaded codebase

Developed a smooth streaming video playback solution for multiple platforms including PlayStation 3 & 4, Wii, Xbox One, several TV SOCs and other Linux embedded systems
Integrated the video player into a different team’s JavaScript UI framework on multiple platforms
Developed several Python tools for profiling memory allocations, displaying the video player’s internal buffer levels, tools for verifying an asset has been correctly encoded and build tooling
Lead several porting integration camps in different countries with third party engineers

Travel

I like to travel, I’m a well rounded individual, I promise, here’s proof! Or at least some photos of me not at a computer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hiking & Camping in Peru Sept 2022

I spent 10 days hiking and camping the choquequirao trail in Peru. It was the most physically demanding thing I have ever done. Here’s me and Machu Picchu:

Cycling Passau to Vienna on the Danube Jun 2022

I cycled the Danube river in Austria from Passau to Vienna, staying at BnBs along the way and annoying locals by trying to speak German. Here’s me and the Danube:

Thailand Dec 2019 - Jan 2020

I travelled around Thailand over Christmas in December. Staying in Bangkok, Surat Thani, Koh Samui, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai. I went to the worst comedy night I have ever witnessed on Chritmas eve. Here’s me and some islands:

Italy Oct 2019

I travelled around Italy, here’s me and some Italian countryside:

Fitness

I follow the stronglifts 5x5 weight training program.

Any cardio?

No comment

Chess

I enjoy trying to play chess

Guitar

I’ve played guitar and filmed things on a potato since I was 14