Expert Generalist for Exceeding Expectations

I am one of those guys who started programming in grade school. When I decided to actually pursue a tech industry job in my last 20s, I found that my fear of being under-qualified was unfounded, since I turned out to be massively overqualified.

A couple years later I was the first dev hire for Zynga East, where I worked to bring FrontierVille, a massively successful online social game, to fruition in six months. Part of this got my name on a patent, for a mechanism to 'fake' synchronous social activity in the game.

In addition to this, I wrote a scripting language and compiler, pitched and sold a fairly novel process and technology stack for designers to rapidly generate game content, and was generally known as the go-to guy to hotfix live problems with the game. Often this involved systems that I had not worked on before. I was also known as a rapid bugfixer, sometimes closing over 60 issues in a day.

After Zynga, I worked with various startups and did some freelancing. Two years ago I joined a startup involved in the manufacturing of digital photo boots. I set up and was responsible for the entire back end operation, and also developed a system to deliver, as fast as possible, time-critical operating system updates over the air, even in situations where cellular reception was poor (e.g. sports stadiums, bars).

I have recently rekindled an interest in low-level development, working on some personal ideas involving evolutionary computing. I am currently learning Rust.

Outside of these interests, I enjoy working out and am trying to make time to make some music. I aspire to be a spiritual successor to Negativland and learn how to salsa. I am also interested in languages, and would like to live in Russia, Korea or France at some point.

Work Terms

I prefer to work mostly via chat or email. I am mainly interested in a low-ish number of hours a week on an ongoing basis, or a high number of hours for short-term projects, but I am open to any situation we decide works for both of us.