I'm a UX Engineer and Product Designer currently working for Asurion as the Product Design System Lead. When I'm not up to my neck in Figma files or flexing my code muscles 馃挭馃徎, I'm finding a bit of peace working on music.
us路er | yo蜑oz蓹r | noun'
1. a person who uses or operates something, especially a computer or other machine. 2. a human.
ex路pe路ri路ence | ik藞spir膿蓹ns | noun
1. practical contact with and observation of facts or events. synonyms: involvement in, participation in, contact with, acquaintance with, exposure to, observation of, awareness of, insight into
en路gi路neer | enj蓹藞nir | noun
1. a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or public works. synonyms: originator, deviser, designer, architect, inventor, developer, creator; mastermind
I have always been passionate about code. As a child, my dad and I would hack DOS games like Prophecy of the Shadow (to bypass long conversations with peasants and other boring tasks). Navigating around the operating system from the command line made me feel like I could do anything.
My venture into programming became serious when I picked up my mother's copy of K&R's The C Programming Language. From there, I taught myself Objective-C and started writing iOS apps. Every app I wrote needed a web counterpart of some kind so, I learned to write that part too. I quickly realized a few things:
Maybe it's because it's pretty easy to hack together a website or maybe it's because HTML and CSS aren't formal programming languages but, even in today's internet-driven world there's a remarkable void of front-end web development standards, guidelines, and best-practices. "It works" and, "It works well" are not enough. It's not enough that your website looks and feels good. It's not enough that it runs fast. As important as your website's look, feel, and performance is its code, its maintainability, its accessibility, its backwards-compatibility. I am passionate about crafting websites that will last more than my lifetime. I believe code should be simple, eloquent, and efficient. I write code that is scalable, maintainable, and human-readable.
Before I started coding as a career, I graduated from Belmont University, worked in a few restaurants and for Apple Retail, and toured around a bit playing music with The Ember Days and Hello Kelly. I also spent a few years playing bass with a band called Trenton. We wrote and recorded an album called Reasoning In Doubt, of which I am particularly proud.