I help companies build websites and applications.
I’ve always been interested in how things work. Starting my career as a Firedog PC technician at Circuit City, I thought that IT support was where my career would take off.
It did! I got to be a Geek Squad agent for Best Buy at one of their larger-volume stores. I did global helpdesk support for Thomson Reuters and transitioned into a corporate support role at Western National Insurance. But looking up the chain, I wanted to do more than support systems that are already in place. I wanted to build things and be more involved in creative aspects of tech work.
That’s where development came in. I worked my way into software testing for a web application that drove the agent-facing portal at Western National (Agents Online). It was a full-stack application built on Vue, Nuxt, Strapi, GraphQL and Storybook. This is where personal development started and I enrolled in a Udemy course for full-stack development.
Before I finished the course, I moved into a development role for Western National’s Guidewire project. I trained to become an associate, then specialist certified for working within Guidewire’s PolicyCenter system. This system is based on Gosu (a Java based language) and GuideWire Studio (a customized JetBrains Java IDE) using XML sheets for application UI configuration.
I continued my Udemy course and finished my full-stack training. I edited my LinkedIn profile and resume and a job popped up that was perfect. It was a Web Developer position at Best Buy! I applied expecting to at least put myself out there but ended up getting the job! It’s incredibly challenging and is teaching me a lot but it’s also very fulfilling. I hope I can pass my knowledge forward to others so that they might find their next career one day as well.
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