(Originally published on Substack . Subscribe there for email updates!) I’m excited to share that earlier this year, I joined an early-stage startup named Pomelo as VP of Engineering — and we just launched! Pomelo as a product and idea is brilliant. But first, some background. Millions of immigrants live in the US and regularly send money back home to their families. These money transfers, called…
(Originally published on Substack . Subscribe there for email updates!) Ten years ago, on Memorial Day 2012, I authored JSON5 , an open-source project that aimed to fix a small problem I felt when writing certain software. I’d been chewing on the problem for a year when I decided to finally address it. I coded for roughly ten hours that day, then shared what I built to Hacker News (a forum for…
I just posted that I’m going to write about engineering leadership and management on this blog. In the wake of yesterday’s news , it feels disingenuous to truck ahead on that topic when so many are so impacted. I value being authentic, and I feel compelled to speak. (I’m also inspired by leaders like Linda Kim who’ve courageously spoken up here even when they know it’d be far safer not to.) I know…
Last year, I left one startup named Even to lead all of engineering at another startup named Cardless . I never ended up writing about it, but this was another valuable experience full of learning and growth. This was my first time at this level of role (Head of Eng), and I made plenty of mistakes. With help and support from excellent advisors ( Gil Shklarski ), mentors ( Nicholas Clark ), coaches…
I joined Even in 2017, compelled by the mission and impressed by the founders. I thought I was putting my career on the backburner, not expecting to learn or grow too much, but boy, was I wrong. Over four years, I learned & grew more than I ever expected, as an engineer, manager, leader, and teammate. I left Even this month for another opportunity (which I’ll share more about soon). Below is an…
This is a cross-post of a post I wrote at Even. Original post on Even’s blog. Tech interviewing sucks. As a candidate, it’s stressful, exhausting, and demoralizing. To do well, you often need to explicitly prepare, which is both tedious and time consuming. It may not even be feasible if you’re a parent or have other obligations outside of work. Interviews themselves can feel arbitrary and…
After five wonderful years, I left FiftyThree this past month to pursue something new. I’m grateful for the incredible experience. For my next adventure, I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining the team at Even Responsible Finance ! Even is a tech startup aiming to fight income inequality. From the job post that drew me in: 77 million Americans work for an hourly wage. Their median income is…
I’m a big fan of CoffeeScript . Daniel and I built all of Thingdom in it, and we at FiftyThree are building our next product entirely in it, as well. Other JavaScript developers aren’t in such love. CoffeeScript has become a subject of great controversy, and it’s created a sharp divide in the community and ecosystem. There’s nothing wrong with people disliking things, of course, or different…
For a long time now, I’ve been meaning to write a nice blog post about The Thingdom ’s tech stack. Alas, that still hasn’t happened. But, this past November, I had the privilege of giving a talk at QCon SF (an enterprise software development conference) on a part of that tech stack: a graph database we built on called Neo4j . I really enjoyed preparing and giving that talk, but I never got around…
I started this blog over a year ago . I promised to share my thoughts and ideas here, but that’s barely happened! Time to change that, and what better way to begin than to share the code behind this blog itself? Context Your first question may be, why is there any code at all? There are plenty of feature-rich blogging sites and services out there, and indeed, for most people, I’d unequivocally…
Eighteen months ago, I left Microsoft to start The Thingdom . That journey officially ended this week, and a new one has begun. After months of keeping it under wraps, I’m thrilled to finally share that my friends at FiftyThree have acquired The Thingdom, and I’ve joined them to transform our technology into something new. FiftyThree is the company behind the award-winning iPad app Paper , and…
I’m very excited to finally unveil what I’ve been working on for the past few months! I’ll start with the story. When I decided to leave Microsoft, I realized that I’d need a new computer. Having experienced Apple hardware in the past, I knew that I wanted a Mac; the question was simply which one. I spent time researching the various models and specs, but ultimately, I wanted more “human” data. I…
It’s been a few years since I’ve had a website to call my own. That’s certainly ironic, given that I call myself a web developer . Most of those few years for me were spent at Microsoft Live Labs , home to some amazing people that built some equally amazing technology . At Live Labs, my thoughts and ideas were all public, whether through emails or frequent show-and-tells like those at the end of…