I have a computer engineering degree (BS, Michigan State university, 2010). When I graduated, I was about at the same level as most fresh CS graduates: strong on theory but not much practical experience. My first post-college job was as a "controls design engineer". I spent three years programming industrial computers (mostly Allen-Bradley and Siemens PLCs and HMIs for factories). It was a good experience, I learned a lot, and got pretty good at it, but it was industry-specific --I wasn't getting any marketable experience outside of the narrow field that my first job happened to be in. The next several years I spent building things, taking care of my daughter and writing. This was largely personal time, and although the gap on my resume may raise some eyebrows, I did things that were important to me, and I have no regrets. Later, I left the United States. I lived in Latvia for a while, and am currently [2019] in Odessa, Ukraine.

I currently teach English, but I still occassionally feel drawn to programming. I am not a software developer. But, I do have some skills and experience, and sometimes think it would be a good idea to "get back in the saddle" and get a technical job again. If and when I do, the proof will be here and in the timestamps on my Github projects.

Portfolio

The following sections describe software I have written. To anyone curious, most of the code is available on Github.

"SIMON"

My second React project, "SIMON" was made for freeCodeCamp's frontend course. I had "simple, mobile-first, responsive" in mind as I designed it. I made heavy use of promises and ES6 syntax, and used SVG and web-audio for the animation and sounds. The code can be found in my github React repository.

my version of the "SIMON" game made in React

"HELLO WORLD"

My first React project, "HELLO WORLD" is typed onto the screen, styled like a neon lamp, and in fact the lamp can be switched on and off. Cool, except after a few seconds the bulb in the first "O" flickers and dies! It was a fun little project to try out different techniques that I hadn't used before, like javascript promises.

my version of a "hello world" page in React

Slider Puzzle

A traditional sliding puzzle. My first non-trivial javascript project, as such it has a few issues with code structure, but it works, so I've decided to wait until I have more experience before I go back and refactor it. I also used Bootstrap 4 (beta), to see how it differed from Bootstrap 3.

A slider puzzle game, in javascript, with Bootstrap 4

freeCodeCamp

"freeCodeCamp.org" prescribes a course and a series of projects, and on successful completion of the project the user has a portfolio of projects to point to as proof of their skill. This provides a solution to the classical paradox, "you can't get a job without experience, but you can't get experience without a job". I never finished the curriculum, but it was a good experience, and I'm proud of some of the projects I completed. For example, You can view my overall freeCodeCamp status in my profile.