Zebra 2011 - 2015

I started at Zebra in technical support. My initial role was to support customers using Zebra’s SDKs (software development kits) to integrate their applications with Zebra hardware devices.

My role in tech support exposed me to a myriad of languages and stacks: C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, Delhpi, C#, VB.net, VB6, as well as a number of proprietary printer languages.

Over the years my contributions grew from handling support requests to documentating SDK examples, writing tutorials, delivering on-site training to customers (In Spanish, no less), and writing in-house utilities for technical support. My work, including my StackOverflow responses, lives on to this day.

After 2 years in technical support I applied for an internal software engineer role and was accepted. We worked primarily on web-based IoT/device management software that leveraged websocket connections to maintain constant connections with customer printers.

Follett 2015 - current

I was hired at Follett as a senior software engineer in October 2015. My primary role was as a developer on a federated search engine to discover educational resources for libraries and schools throughout the country.

Follett’s environment really helped me grow as an engineer and a people manager - there were ample opportunities to learn, socialize, and implement new technologies, large teams with mentoring opportunities, and dozens of different applications to develop against. People were friendly. It has been a very healthy work environment.

Over time I progressed from senior-level developer to team lead and ultimately to software development manager. At this point I am working on 3-4 concurrent projects with 15-20 direct reports.

The scope of my accomplishments have become progressively larger. Initially I assisted in things like code migration from SVN to Git, evangelizing meaningful unit testing, and championing difficult technical stories. More recently I have facilitated team-wide process and understanding of ADA development, coordinated the migration of entire build systems into a continuous delivery platform, and provided tangible career progression outlines for my reports.