I’m a Senior Software Engineer (Web) at Sprout Social . Over the past years at Sprout I have worked on the marketing sites and now specialize in growth and product-led engineering to help our customers get the most out of our software.
I am a self-taught web developer with a background in art and art history. On paper those things seem disconnected, but the knowledge I gained in both practices have been critical in my growth. My interest in art and education led me to volunteer my time to improve the website of a local arts center. In return, that experience led me to pursue web development, a career I have found equal fulfillment in.
Since then I have continued the ongoing process of learning and have built a personal library of development knowledge. I am always excited to take on new challenges that let me expand and share that set of tools.
My fine art practice focused on the lost-wax, bronze-casting technique. Similar to web development each step builds on the previous one—from creating a clay model to finishing the bronze—if you don’t understand all the steps in the process, you jeopardize the final product. Working in this tradition taught me to be aware of each action and its role in the project, ensuring the best result for the client and their customers.
Hours of research are the backbone for a great art historian, in the same way that hours of online research result in great development. If you run into a problem in your work, the solution is just a search away. And if that search turns up nothing, you celebrate because you just found your focus or thesis. Even when the result isn’t out there yet, the solution becomes a synthesis of existing ideas to solve your problem. Dedication, time, and a few breaks can lead to great results.
The first couple of flops (some still floating around the interwebs) are hard. Each time I wanted to walk away and give up but I soon realized that those were the best moments to learn from. Now I embrace mistakes and let them educate each subsequent project.
I’m currently rebuilding my portfolio so I took down a lot of content that felt ancient. If you have any questions about my experience you can always check LinkedIn or contact me with questions .
Yeah this site is massively overbuilt. I use this site for a combination of things, but mainly as a way to play around with new technology and try new things. So yeah, it is over-built for what it is.
While building any content for the web, I keep accessibility in mind. It should be part of the thought process to plan, design, and build any web content. Accessibility helps everyone, so let’s get it done.
Building for the web is iterative, and you won’t get it 100% right in the first pass. You also shouldn’t let that stop you from creating content. Just get your project out there and then fix the bugs and add the features that are in demand (not just the ones you THINK will add value).
In the digital marketing department, I serve as web architect. In that role, I have improved revenue tracking across three separate sales channels in Google Analytics, brought our Drupal development in-house saving money and time, converted email campaigns to responsive templates, and developed promotional sites for marketing campaigns.
As a web developer in the marketing department, I oversaw the migration from a proprietary CMS to Drupal, coordinated the launch of a new sales channel, assisted in the development of several promotional email campaigns, and maintained and developed content to supplement on-air programming.
In the role of webmaster at Nimlok company I was tasked with a wide variety of jobs. Primarily I maintained over 85 websites for the US main office and its distributors. I also created email templates for a variety of customer and distributor communications.
As a freelance developer, I have worked for a variety of clients ranging from local arts groups to international, industrial manufacturing equipment sales. I develop Wordpress sites, improve search engine optimization, convert fixed-width websites to responsive, and provide an expert voice on digital projects.