README

Being a software generalist requires a certain amount of curiosity, determination and passion. It requires you to be good at learning and quick at failing. What it really comes down to is being good at managing yourself, and others expectations. Whether it's a iOS prototype, a large single page web app, or a hackathon with embedded hardware you've got to be able to jump in, under-promise and still over deliver.

When making something, these are a few things that matter to me:

• Make it well. Whatever you put out into the world - make sure it's the best product you could. Then raise the bar.

• Make it beautiful. You can tell when someone has poured their soul into a product. Whether that product tells a story, solves a problem, or makes a difference, you can be sure that every pixel has been obsessed over. I like to make those types of products.

• Make it worthwhile. I believe in making products that work well and solve a problem. I believe in leveraging technology and design to shape behavior for a preferable future.

• Make it with purpose. I follow my passions. It makes me happier, more determined and more invested in what I create.

I think solid engineering is just as important as good design.

Explore

Sometimes you have to move fast and break things to validate an idea. Whether that's hacking on an Arduino to controla motion sensitive backpack, or whipping together an awe-inspiring clock of the future that can order pizza, prototyping can be extremely valuable.

I've have a fair amount of experience throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. I've been fortunate enough to be able to work on prototypes ranging from proof of concept Unity applications to iOS applications networked with arduino microcontrollers, so one thing I'm good at is quickly ramping up on new technologies.

Before working on amazing projects at Artefact, I did a quick stint at Oregon State Universityprototyping iOS applications for their eCampus division. I also had the opportunity to partner with Intel at OSU to create an Android app that simulated the flow of electrons through silicon.

Having experience with multiple platforms and languages has exposed me to different frameworks, patterns and ways of approaching a problem. One thing prototyping gives you is a sense of humility, and a great appreciation for well built products.

Build

Shipping products is difficult. At Artefact I was able to help contribute quite a few internal projects such asInsights as well as:

• Pirch: A customer-centric apprach to retail
• Design maturity survey
• Dreambox Learning: Re-inventing education

I've been doing full-stack ruby on rails development for the last few years and I couldn't agree more with theRails Doctrine. The patterns and pragmatism rooted in Rails really sets it apart from other frameworks. Combined with the elegance and simplicity of Ruby it makes delivering simple, focused applications quite enjoyable.

The front-end however is a different story.

I have mixed feelings about javascript on a daily basis, but regardless it's here to stay. On one hand it's amazing how welcoming javascript is and how it's taking over the world, but then you see things like this that leave you scratching your head. It's an exciting time to be working on front end technologies - the amount of new frameworks / build tools / transpiled languages / patterns around structuring modern web applications is amazing to see. The churn that is produced from this, however, is less than desirable.

Web development is great but my true passion is iOS development. It was the first platform that I truly blown away by - being able to touch the pixels that you created was amazing. I taught myself Objective-C, familiarized myself with Cocoa and even taught myself to use illustrator in order to create myfirst app. Another one is on it's way.

I have strong opinions on No-SQL databases, I think a strong knowledge of design patterns is more important than knowing algorithmic complexity, and I prefer vim to emacs.