Introduction
Hello and welcome to my personal website! I'm an early-career software enthusiast with a passion for creating elegant, user-friendly software that leaves a lasting impression. At this stage in my journey, I'm still exploring the vast landscape of software development, which excites me because it means there are countless opportunities to learn and grow.
While I'm not yet certain of the specific path I'll take in the software world, one thing I'm sure of is my deep appreciation for the impact that well-crafted software can have. It's a feeling I've experienced as a user, and I aspire to bring that same feeling to others through my work. The scalability of software is another aspect that fascinates me—it allows for the potential of making a significant impact relatively quickly.
I approach my career with an open mind, ready to embrace diverse roles and challenges that come my way. I believe that this early stage is a time for exploration, learning, and refining my focus as I become more passionate about particular aspects of software development. Ultimately, my goal is to contribute positively to the world of technology and bring innovative solutions to life.
Thank you for visiting my website, and I invite you to explore my journey and work as it unfolds. If you'd like to connect or explore potential collaborations, please don't hesitate to reach out—I'd love to hear from you.
Background and Experiences
From visiting relatives in Germany almost every year and even going to school there for a couple of months, to visiting family in Peru and adventurously traversing the Amazon river on a seemingly risky ferry, my parents did a great job exposing me to different cultures and eye-opening experiences growing up.
They pushed me to pursue my interests which led to a lot of exploration, particularly in the field of technology although not limited to it. Interests such as Korean music and TV shows led me to eventually learn the language and visit Korea multiple times. Similarly, my interest in technology led to my learning of programming languages such as Swift to develop iPhone apps, and later Python alongside others such as HTML, CSS and Javascript to take on web development.
All of these experiences have transformed the way I think and helped me become the person that I am today, and I look forward to even more such experiences in the future that will help me grow as a person, understand the world differently, and contribute to it in my own unique way.
Passions and Interests
When I’m not working on building something, I enjoy activities such as listening to podcasts, reading, working out and playing video games. My current favorite podcast would definitely be the Acquired Podcast on YouTube hosted by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal. They go in depth on the history of large successful businesses such as Amazon, Nvidia and Nike and the founders behind them. If not listening to the Acquired Podcast, you can usually catch me at the gym hitting either a push, pull, or leg day. Sometimes I’ll read while doing cardio on the treadmill or stair master but having just finished my latest read, The Song of Achilles, I’m currently on the lookout for a new book to start. If you have any recommendations, please let me know! Lastly, in terms of video games, I don’t play much of a variety; mostly just Rocket League and some League of Legends, both of which I’ve played for some years now.
Skills and Expertise
Although my roots lie in iOS app development, my current skill set is definitely more catered towards web development, specifically web apps. I’ve been using Django with raw HTML, CSS and Javascript since 2021, and out of a want to build more interactive and reactive web apps began to learn React and Next.js in 2023. I have experience developing and deploying Django web apps connected to an Amazon RDS database via AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and also Next.js web apps to Vercel. Although my Django projects used the built-in ORM (object relational mapping) layer and I’ve become very familiar with it, I wanted to learn how to interact with a database directly and began learning SQL directly in 2023 via Harvard’s CS50 Introduction to SQL course available online for free! I generally use Git and Github for version control on all my projects and am very comfortable with it as a tool.
Web development aside, I do have some experience with C, C++ and Swift. C and C++ were taught to me in college and I used them for projects learning about concepts like pointers and memory allocation. Although it’s neat to get into the low-level details of how data is managed and used, I prefer languages like Python and Javascript because they allow me to build usable products and programs faster. That being said, another language I enjoy using but haven’t used much in a while is Swift. It was actually the first programming language I ever learned. I started learning Swift in middle school and eventually made some fun apps in high school with it that I enjoyed showing to my friends. I’d like to return to mobile app development in the future and the only question for me is whether I want to focus on just iOS development with Swift or use a cross-platform solution like React Native.
Career Goals
Writing code that normal people can interact with and enjoy interacting with is extremely fulfilling for me. Given my current skill set, a front or back end position in web development is what I’m actively seeking. I would certainly consider other positions, but web development is what I have the most experience with and definitely enjoy doing. Working on my own side projects is pleasurable but they only reach so many people and I miss the feeling of collaboration with others to build something bigger and better than I could on my own.
Web development has been great to build things that people can use immediately without the friction of having to download and install something. That being said, not all great software lives on the web, so I can definitely see myself expanding to build mobile apps or software for other mediums in the future as well. Essentially, if it has or can have a visual user interface, I would love to participate in developing it.
