Personal details

Brad C. - Remote

Brad C.

Timezone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) (UTC-4)

Summary

I believe the barrier to entry for many beginning developers is nailing down the fundamentals, and that's what I'm here to help with.

The fundamentals aren't necessarily the hardest to grasp, but "unconscious competence" can often blind more senior developers to their existence. As a result, their explanation tends to be omitted from most tutorials, replaced instead with words like "just", "of course", and "trivially". I'm sure I've been guilty of these omissions myself, but when I have a mentee in front of me that's stuck, I'm dogged in my pursuit to identify where the gaps in their knowledge lie, and how to forever sew them shut.

And because this road can be a long and difficult one, I also know that it helps to have a friend by your side through the journey; so more than just helping to navigate new concepts and technical issues, I want to serve as moral support for others who are now where I once was. Through the entire journey, but especially at the beginning, I think having this support can make or break, and I don't want to see anyone broken.

As for me, I love learning languages, both programming and natural.

When it comes to human languages, I can both read and converse in Japanese, but I'm currently focused on increasing my vocabulary in hopes of comprehending more complicated subject matter.

In the world of programming, I love Ruby, tolerate JavaScript (grin), and am currently most interested in functional languages. Previously I had been using Elixir quite a bit, but at the moment ML-style languages like Haskell, Elm, and PureScript have been holding most of my attention.

Things I'd particularly love to help you with include:

  • Haskell (getting started or exploring new concepts)
  • Elm and/or JavaScript (building in-browser applications)
  • Ruby (getting started or leveling up)
  • Rails (picking projects, implementing features, exploring libraries, etc.)
  • web development in general (front- or back-end)

If any of this sounds like what you're looking for in a mentor, please don't hesitate to get in touch, even if you'd just like to chat. I'll be looking forward to hear from you!

Work Experience

Co-Founder
Kohort | Oct 2016 - Present
Node.js
Haskell
PostgreSQL
Heroku
Bootstrap
Es6
Elixir
Elm
Phoenix
Servant
- Built front-end SPA in Elm (~9.5k SLOC) for member management system - Prototyped IoT door control device using Node.js, Docker, and resin.io - Implemented real-time communication via Phoenix Channels (WebSockets) - Began building back-end in Haskell (Servant)
Founder
These 8 Bits, LLC | Aug 2015 - Present
Ruby
Ruby on Rails
Heroku
JavaScript
Elm
- Shipped Elm & Rails application for barcode scan-in at MindBody locations - Wrote manuscript for intro to Ruby web application development - Maintained and extended Rails applications

Personal Projects

Mentoring to employment in development
2014
Mentoring
A few years ago, a good friend from high school got back in touch with me and told me he wanted to break into development, but he wasn't sure what to do. He had already tried juggling a full-time job and family with college, but that hadn't worked out very well, and so he was looking for another way. I knew there was one. Looking back at my own experience in college, my professors used out-dated tech and didn't bother to teach even the basics of web development, so everything I needed to know for my job as a web developer I had learned on my own, and I believed that he had it in him to do the same. Fast forward about a year's worth of my friend's dedicated effort, and he landed a gig doing ETL at a Fortune 500 company, where he still works today, years later, as a senior developer. In talking about the experience later, he said that the technical guidance I had given him had been useful, but that the thing he thought made the biggest difference to him was having someone there to encourage him and to continually remind him that he was on the right track and that he _could_ do it. Getting to play that part in helping him transform his life for himself and his family has probably been _the_ most worthwhile thing I've done in life, and ever since I've wanted to do more. Sadly though, no one else has come looking for my help since, so I'm setting out to find them myself. And so here I am; this time to help you.