Origin Story
Birth of a Nerd
My birth year is stored in an environment variable that's definitely not committed to this repo. Some secrets are meant to stay in the vault - like production passwords and a developer's true age.
First Star Trek Episode
Watched 'The Trouble with Tribbles' and immediately knew I wanted to build things that multiply exponentially. Little did I know this would later apply to my bug count.
Family Tech Support Era Begins
Became the unofficial IT department for extended family. 'Have you tried turning it off and on again?' became my catchphrase. This was excellent preparation for debugging production issues.
First Website Launch
Created yoursiteofsites.com - a Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft fan site. Not that you asked, but it featured animated GIFs and a guest book. Peak web design.
Rotary Exchange Student
Spent a year as a Rotary exchange student in Warsaw, Poland. Learned that debugging code in Polish is surprisingly similar to debugging code in English - lots of frustrated sighing.
Chicago North Side - Starving Artist Phase
Moved to the big city with dreams and a very small bank account. Survived on ramen and ambition. Learned that 'exposure' doesn't pay rent, but it does build character.
Bootstrapping Indie Filmmaker
Wrote, directed, and edited short films. Bootstrapped everything from gear to post-production. Learned that shipping creative work on a shoestring budget is surprisingly good training for startup engineering.
Engineering Renaissance
Decided to go back to school and pursue computer engineering. Traded film sets for lecture halls, but kept the creative problem-solving skills.
Bachelor of Science - Computer Engineering
Graduated with a BS in Computer Engineering from UIC. Finally understood what all those Stack Overflow answers were talking about.
CTI & The Great Denver Migration
Landed my first engineering job at CTI and moved to Denver. Perfect timing for a pandemic! Became an expert at remote work before it was cool.
Tech Lead & $100M Contract
Promoted to Tech Lead at CTI. Scaled the team from 5 to 27 engineers and led the product to a $100M follow-on contract. Finally got to make architectural decisions — and they actually worked.
Roblox & The Bay Area Move
Joined Roblox as a Senior Software Engineer working on frontend platform infrastructure — module federation at massive scale (~80M+ DAU). Traded deep dish for sourdough.
The Next Chapter
Building frontend platform infrastructure at scale — and always curious about what's next. If your team values clean architecture and the occasional Star Trek reference, let's talk.
Timeline Statistics
The Story Continues.
This timeline is still being written. Got an interesting problem? I'm always up for a good conversation about architecture, tooling, or what makes great teams tick.