Monday, June 22, 2015

Achieving a dream conceived two years ago.

(This was a note I posted to Facebook, but putting it here as well for memory's sake.)

Two years ago, I began a journey to teach myself programming, forming a crazy dream to one day travel the world teaching dance on weekends and working remotely during the week.
Today, I am overwhelmed with excitement (and a little nervousness) to announce the start of my new job at Amazon Web Services, where I will be following exactly that same dream.

At AWS, I will be a Web Development Engineer II (i.e. mid-level) as a founding member of a new team within Kinesis. We are building a brand new feature to help users gain better insights into their streaming data. I will be involved with the entire lifecycle, from product brainstorming all the way through shipping. 

I'll be loosely based in Seattle for the next couple months before once again living on the road more consistently. It's really happening.

-- Appreciations --
Bobby: thank you, again, for that serendipitously timed conversation two years ago when you encouraged me to start programming, convinced me that a CS degree was unnecessary, and showed me a path to become a software engineer.
Leo, Brandon, Hugh, Shawn, Michael, Arlo, Jeremy, Joachim, Ian, Stryder, Joshua, David, and countless others: thanks for the random bits of advice, encouragement, or general geeking out about programming that helped me along the way. Also, for the support to follow my dream and help me believe that it would be possible.
Anoakie: thank you for the invaluable mentorship you have provided. Your immense generosity has humbled me and I look forward to a chance when I can do the same for others.
Hack Reactor: thanks for a crazy intense learning environment to round out my autodidactic approach and give me the experience in web development to land this job.
Karim, Jake, and Ruben: thanks for being amazing teammates at Hack Reactor.
Sarah: you connected me to the opportunity, you convinced them to phone screen me when I wasn't sufficiently compelling on paper, and you were my champion and support buddy through the whole process. It is not overstating it to say that I would not have this job without you. Thanks so much.