Companies see a resource that does one thing. People see a guy who likes computers, or a gamer. The real answer takes longer than a coffee meeting, so here it is, the part a one-page resume has no room for.
01The maker
Long before it was a job, this was the thing I did for fun: take something apart, understand it, make it better, or build the thing that should exist and does not yet. That instinct never switched off. The ecosystem on this site is as much nights and weekends as it is work, because building is not what I do to earn a living. It is closer to how I think.
02The gamer
I never stopped being a gamer. RetroRespawn began there: I wanted to run game servers for my friends, found the existing tools clunky and unwelcoming, and did what I always do, built the ones I wished existed. It is not a side quest away from the serious work. It is the same instinct, pointed at something I love.
03The people
Automation and business and engineering are the craft. Lifting the people around me is the point. I have built teams, mentored technologists into leaders, and I would rather make ten people better than be the smartest person in the room. I am an extrovert who happens to be an engineer, and I have never seen those two things as a contradiction.
04What grounds me
Away from the keyboard, this is the part that matters most. My wife, Katy, is my world and my rock. Our three sons, Max, Oscar, and Nash, are a gift from God I will never take for granted. The work is ambitious and the hours can be long, but my family is what keeps everything else in proportion, and the reason any of it is worth doing well.
05The why
Underneath all of it is one belief: software should make a person's life easier, and most of it does not. It is built by technical people for technical people, and everyone else is told to adapt. I went the other way. I am technical enough to carry the hard part so you never have to. If I can make the device already in your pocket the thing that quietly makes your day better, every bit of this was worth it.
If any of this resonates, the work it produces is one click away.