Education

I spent most of my childhood tinkering with obsolete free computers and developed “the knack” for technology. My toys were Lego, K’NEX, and the small wires that made pink smoke when I fixed things wrong. By 13 I was coding in C and tinkering with different distributions of Linux in my spare time, and that low-level perspective has stuck with me.

I knew I wanted to be some kind of engineer, and I knew that I had an aptitude for computers. I didn’t want to be stuck in a cubicle; I wanted to do something physically connected with the world around me. Mechanical Engineering seemed like a broad door-opener for that, and so in 2011 I graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). That shot my career off in an “engineer-ish” direction, but I didn’t land where I expected at all.

Career

Building Automation

My first “big company” experience with software was as a field automation technician with Honeywell Building Solutions in Toronto. My educational background and computer aptitude allowed me to excel at this technical position and develop expertise. My manager was kind enough to pick me up for office visits; after all she was the one that forgot to ask if I had a license before hiring me! Our healthy working relationship had a significant influence on my career and life, and I’m thankful for that.

The nature of my responsibilities grew as my expertise and confidence increased. I provided technical support for field technicians, proactively improved key sites, and handled field troubleshooting of high profile issues. I learned a lot about the inner workings of countless pieces of hardware and software, which my low-level experience ten years ago in my bedroom made possible.

Eventually high management turnover left me stranded without leadership. My future with the company seemed murky and I was feeling stagnant. It didn’t seem to matter if I did a good job or a mediocre one, and my feeling of self-worth was deeply tied to that.

I left Honeywell in 2016 to join Airon HVAC and Control, a small controls company based in Burlington, Ontario. It was my first experience with installing controls systems from scratch and my first experience with hiring. The smaller company was stretched thin across Southern Ontario, and I even had a job in California! I was getting frustrated with the travel time and did not last a year. I found an opportunity to work a lot less, trade the bucket in a boiler room for a large desk in an air conditioned space, and earn considerably more.

Software Development

I was the first software developer hired by J. S. Ferraro, a small company that specializes in meat trading, livestock markets, and risk management. At the time their risk management system was largely Excel and e-mail based. I built a data acquisition and notification system for them and converted their Excel spreadsheets into interactive Tableau dashboards. I migrated their servers from hosted virtual machines in a datacenter to AWS and saved them a bundle doing it. Their data collection, predictive models, and visualization system likely has no equal in the meat & livestock market; a market where floppy discs are not a distant memory.

After two years in the position the system was built and stable. I hired three software developers and filled a temporary position gap as the Acting Director of Information Technology. My former reluctance to enter the I.T. field came back to bite me, as I learned that information technology is not a field that I enjoy. Building new software systems? Love it. Budgeting and planning an ERP rollout? Not for me! I burnt out pretty quickly and quit.

Freelance & Burnout Recovery

I struck out on my own as a freelance software developer in February of 2020. With less reason to stay in a small, expensive Toronto apartment, my partner and I bought a house in Amherst, Nova Scotia.

I used my newfound freedom to learn the Rust programming language, develop my first Android app, and recover from burn out while freelancing enough to pay the bills.

The productivity “demon” responsible for my burn-out sat on my shoulder whispering sweet nothings about how I have no value unless I produce monetizable things; and so I was convinced to start a project dedicated to the promotion of critical thinking in the mad noise-ridden world of trading; but I’m just not that interested in trading. Bayesian statistics was the real attraction there for me, but I see that as a useful tool rather than an end in itself.

I’m working on a multi-currency budgeting app that helps partners (from couples to polycules) manage finances together by doing it separately. Think YNAB plus Splitwise, except the former only supports one currency per budget. This’ll save me and my partner time, and I am hoping to monetize it as well.

I’ve been going a bit nuts collecting Tolkien books. I’ve been finding the legendarium really rewarding to study in depth. Each time I turn over a rock expecting to find nothing, I keep finding smaller rocks to turn over! It’s an adventure that keeps on giving.

I am trying my hand at growing some plants indoors. Gardening of any sort is entirely new to me but it’s been immediately rewarding. I’ve got a bunch of flowering pepper plants, a few lemon seedlings, and some basil plants as of this writing. I’m hoping to fill the house with the smell of citrus, but we’ll see if that works out!