At Brightspot (formerly PerfectSense), I started with the company as a Software Engineer doing frontend work for over 10 years. I enjoyed honing my favorite craft with the smartest people I’ve ever worked alongside. I transitioned to a management role, and more recently to the role of Director. As manager, I’ve still maintained a role as a softare engineer for the majority of my work week. I’ve worked on a large variety of websites from corporate communications & information microsites to large media company and news organization sites. I would write about the stack we use, but as AI catches fire across our industry, I believe that becomes less important. Not irrelevant, but the actual software we use is varied and somewhat tyypical for enterprise solutions. More importantly, it’s the innovation I bring & the way I can collaborate with the people, and tools (including AI) around me to achieve success.

Through CACI, I was responsible for frontend development of the World Digital Library Project, a joint project between the Library of Congress and UNESCO. The project include unique features such as a faceted search interface, a virtual user interface to explore books & artifacts (through image tiling like that used on Google Maps). The opportunity gave me the opprtunity to work with several software engineers & project managers who left an indelible mark on my career. Their mentoring & collaboration was invaluable, and I still reflect on this experience fondly.

RTCrm is (or was) a subsidiary of Wunderman. At the time, RTCrm was just starting to build interactive websites for clients, their previous focus was print media. The small team of project managers, designers & developers included people I knew from AOL, which made for an easy transition. I was the lead developer on the RTCrm’s interactive projects. I was responsible for the development of the RTCrm website, in addition to client projects.

I had a few different roles at AOL including “Sample Coordinator” in AOL’s marketing department where I first got exposure to software engineering working closely with a team of AOL’s developers who worked with AOL’s propietary software. Two years after starting with teh company, I transitioned to a development role, and about a year after that the team I was on was split in to two groups, one that stayed with AOL’s propietary software & the other that formed an open web standars team. I am very glad I chose the latter. Web Development became my greatest professioal interest quickly, and so much so that I enrolled in a university through AOL’s education assistance plan to finish a bachelor’s degree in computer science. For that reason & many others including meeting my wife there, AOL will always be one of my favorite work experiences.