For as long as I can remember, I have been into all things tech, including video games. From the Atari all the way up to now the Switch and PS5, I have owned many systems throughout my life. One could say my educational degree and professional career has also seen just as many changes though!

I had tooled with programming on my calculator in high school (hey Arkanoid I am looking at you) and when I graduated, noticed folks throwing their text books in the garbage. Through this I discovered a book on Visual BASIC and this hooked me on programming. As a result, I went to NIU starting a degree in Computer Science; however, my college career was not that straightforward. I went through double majoring in Economics, to eventually dropping CS to a minor before graduating. I felt the curriculum was not setting me up for success, and made the final focus change to maintain better grades for graduation.

Gaming was also my inspiration to join the tech industry. The most prominent example would be when I signed up for betas for a few games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic while working as a support analyst at a Chicago security SaaS company called Trustwave. I found out not long after that I could be paid to do those things and quickly found out how to make the change from my current role.

Through working there I discovered that I still enjoyed programming with Python and Flask. I carried this interest through positions at companies like SproutSocial, Hyatt, and M1 Finance. I still had this nagging desire to create, and as such, building tests was not enough for me.

So working with management at M1 and by showing I could do the work with hard study, I was allowed to move into Android development, and joined the team I had already been working on an Espresso test framework with as a Staff Engineer in Test. The best part (I suffer like most do from Impostor Syndrome)? I was welcomed by the other engineers with open arms. Their reasoning, was that I was already on the team and I guess I had proved I was worth one's mettle.

I LOVE working in Android, but more recently I found out all good things must come to an end. I, and multiple other amazing individuals, were unfortunately laid off early in January 2024. As a result, I am searching for work again on another team working on Android applications that hopefully have a focus on Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, sharp designs, and quality experiences!