Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
It's been a long, long, long, l-o-n-g few years. Mitigating the pandemic, buying a house, handling work stress, and trying to redefine a post-Mountain Rescue existence has been challenging. Certain areas (like this blog) have suffered more than others. I used to try to write a handful of posts every…
A few weeks ago, during normal working hours, something interested happened in one of our team's Slack channels. One of the engineers (from a different team) came in, asked a question about a project they were working on, and, after waiting less than ten minutes, decided to "@here" with a rude…
For the last two years I've been working in the role of an API developer at Shutterstock. This was, initially, a career move that seemed to be both simple and stable. After all, working on an API is just making sure some lightweight application spit out JSON to match an interface, right? Wrong. The…
In early 2014 I started a new, shiny job working for a company based in New York. Shutterstock was my first fully remote position and my first time working for a 'big' technical company - that is, they had more than a hundred employees. Up until then I had worked for small, local shops in Wisconsin,…
Being a remote developer has its share of obvious benefits. There is no commute to work, none of the office distractions, and the comforts of home are just a couple of steps away. However, there are a few downsides to deal with. After five months of working remotely I wanted to take some time and go…
This year started with a big change for me - a new job with Shutterstock in New York. At least the company is based in New York. I'm working as a remote software engineer, staying right here in Wisconsin. Anyways, one of the cool things that Shutterstock does with its remote developers is fly them…
Another year has passed. It felt like a long one for me, longer than most.
For Katie and I, last year was one dominated by a single dramatic event: the arrival of Noah. With both of us being first-time parents we found the long pregnancy dreadful, the birth scary, and seeing our son for the first…
Looking back at my previous jobs it's interesting to look at both what skills I gained while working there and how they shaped the direction of my career. At Michigan Technological University I learned about databases and priority management. SparkNET taught my about object-orientated programming,…
After working with web programmers and developers over the last four years (and being one myself) I've noticed a disconcerting trend. The average lifespan is very short… that is, the lifespan of interest in their job. This is not true for every single worker in this industry but results from…
My career in web development started with delivering products, not necessarily expectations. Starting as a lone web developer I've previously made the mistake of trying to put the product specifications before the client needs, focusing on what I can do technically and not what I should be doing to…