Ever curious and always learning, my journey into software started in my youth during school. I discovered one day that my TI-83 scientific calculator had a PRGM key, which allowed me to interface with it in new ways. This is the exact moment my obsession with programming began.

My appetite grows

At that time, I began learning everything I could: Dreamweaver, Flash, Geocities, Visual Basic and even C++. I was drawn to web development the most, however, because of the visual feedback during the development process. So I learned HTML, CSS and Photoshop. I used JavaScript to add interactivity.

That magic feeling

There was a feeling of magic when I wrote code. You know the one, when you see your creation come to life because of some words you typed on a screen. Thinking that this was just a fun hobby, I would put this on hold so that I could focus on finishing high school and figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.

The free internet provides

Over the years, I kept pushing my own limits in web development and decided to attend college to learn Computer Science and make a career out of it. The first class was a C programming language class, so I turned to the internet to learn PHP, MySQL and Wordpress. Places like Freecodecamp and many other websites helped me become who I am today without ever paying tuition.

So, after acing my first class in college, I left to pursue freelance contracts by offering my web development services to local businesses by designing and building their Wordpress websites, setting up their custom email accounts, and even making their business cards.

Choosing JavaScript as my language of choice

Wordpress, Laravel, and CodeIgniter were my first frameworks, and they were PHP based. I discovered the MVC pattern and other software design patterns. It was, however, clear that web development would be JavaScript based. Once again, I turned to the internet like MDN Web Docs, W3Schools, StackOverflow and so many individual blogs found through Google searches in order to learn JavaScript.

Most of my JavaScript learning projects have not survived, but I was fanatically building apps with all of this new found knowledge. I wanted to do this full time. My lucky break into the industry would happen in 2020 when I was abruptly laid off from my graphic design job at the time. I decided that I was ready to offer my coding skills to a local company called Zilis, and they hired me as a Web Developer.

Years of professional experience

Since then, I have accrued years of professional experience in this field at companies of various sizes, teams and products. I've launched apps internationally and I've been recognized as "setting the standard for frontend developers" at companies.

What's next

Today, I'm seeking new challenges to meet and problems to solve. I would like to lead or work with a team of UI developers to deliver the best possible product, for a startup, Little Tech or any organization with a product that I resonate with. Let's connect and make something happen!