I’m not sure how you’ve ended up here, but welcome 👋. This is my blog. My hope is that you’ll find the content here at bare minimum useful and, at best, simultaneously entertaining.
Since this is my first post, I suppose I should tell you a little bit about myself.
I’m Dave. 😃 … I’m a runner, software engineer, product developer, and most importantly, a christian husband and father. There’s a pretty good chance that any posts you’ll find here relate to those aspects of my identity in some way.
While most of the content I’ll talk about will be tech related, my start in tech was a bit unconventional. Growing up, I had horrible grades, poor attendance, and retrospectively, consider my younger self as a pretty wild and untamed youth. Despite all of that, I went on to serve just shy of 6 years in the Marine Corps (Jan 2001 to Aug 2006). Those times weren’t any less wild and I’m grateful to have learned so much so early in my life.
Oddly, my technical identity was seeded in the Marine Corps. I served as an intelligence analyst, but had the additional responsibility of being the lead system administrator for my units’ intelligence platform. The system was a hodge-podge of software sitting on top of a Solaris 8 based system with a Sybase DB. Much of that software was written in Java (Java 1.3) and was also accompanied by a collection of C programs and various korn shell and c shell scripts. It was one of those systems where executing tar actually involved tape. Good times 😂.
Funny thing - I was never into tech that much before the Corps. I joined the Corps for the challenge. In my teens, I’d gotten into whitewater kayaking, mountain biking, rock climbing, trail running… The Marine Corps seemed like the right option for a dirt bag kid like me with little direction outside of the next big adventure. After a few years of deploying overseas with my unit VMAQ-4, I eventually found myself stationed at a little naval base in Point Mugu, California working alongside several computer scientists and electrical engineers. Several conversations with them convinced me that my right path forward was getting a CSE degree and doing this sort of thing professionally. By then, I was a sergeant and staying in probably meant several role changes (and several more deployments). I enjoyed being a sergeant in the Marine Corps. I learned so much so quickly.
The Corps shaped the parts of my identity that taught me resiliency and have made me a relentless optimist.
In 2006, my wife and I got married and I began school full time at the University of Toledo studying Computer Science and Engineering. I tackled the 5 year program in 3 and some change, graduating Magnum Cum Laude. Again - I owe a lot of that to the Corps. I didn’t have the discipline or interest to do that before the Corps.
I’m going to skip over a lot of details about the teams I’ve been on, lessons I’ve learned, and ways I’ve grown until this point. I’m sure I could talk about them all now but I’d do so at the risk of making this post too long and boring and also at the risk of missing out on opportunities to follow this up with future posts (which these all could be).
In my current role, I’m a Staff Developer on the ScriptHero team at CoverMyMeds. My team is amazing. I continue to learn new things and because of that, continue to feel this sense of personal growth.
If you continue to follow along here, you’ll likely find posts about Software Engineering, Product Development, Running, and maybe the occasional post about my faith and my family. I feel awkward stating faith and family last because in reality, those are more important to me than anything and are the foundation of my life. Those are more personal though - more private and I’d like to respect the privacy of my family and recognize the personal nature inherent in faith.
If you find yourself reading this or any other post I put out there and want to talk more about it, feel free to DM me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or (if you have my email address), email. I’d be happy to chat.
~ Dave