I get asked about my work and background frequently. To that end, I’ll answer the ten most commonly asked questions here.
- Where do you live now? Where are you from?
- π€ Moved to Minnesota to be closer to my family in 2019
- πΎ Grew up in West Fargo, ND, yes, like the movie
- π From 2007-2019 traveled globally, most years more than 50%
- What do you do? What is your job?
- πββοΈ Independent Cloud Architect, Developer & Educator since 2011
- Doing contract work for clients in the US, UK, EU, SA and AU
- Client contracts can run as little as 1 day or as long as 1 year
- π©βπ25-50% of my time is non-billable (learning & volunteering)
- I wrote about this -> “Learn | Build | Teach”
- I contribute to Open Source -> on GitHub
- πΌ In 2021 I added ‘Angel Investor’ to my resume – at Groove Capital
- πββοΈ Independent Cloud Architect, Developer & Educator since 2011
- Who do you work for? Who do you work with?
- π©βπ» Run my own company.Β I work for my customers, rather than for any big company
- π©βπ§βπ¦ Many people have asked to work with me, I’ve written about my process hereΒ
- About hiring interns -> “Intern with Me”
- About interviewing -> “Tech Anti-Interviewing”
- About collaborating -> “Does Pair Programming Work?”
- Do you work at AWS, Google, Linked In, etc…? How many people have watched your courses?
- π Hold partner awards due to my public ed work- NOT employed by these companies.
- π£ Am a contractor for LinkedIn Learning
- Created 25 courses on cloud topics, viewership = 4 million+
- Courses on LinkedIn Learning & YouTube
- What is your educational background?
- πββοΈ Started college at age 15 (graduated at 19) from MN State (Moorhead)
- Have a degree in German Language/Linguistics
- Studied in Ingolstadt, West Germany as part of my degree program
- π Am a life-long learner and learn new languages & concepts continually
- Led an online bookclub for ‘Programming Quantum Computers’ – playlist here
- 5 years ago a good friend got cancer, then I taught myself and…
- I have been working with bioinformaticians…
- building efficient, usable cloud data analysis pipelines…
- for personalized cancer, COVID (and other disease) treatment research.
- πββοΈ Started college at age 15 (graduated at 19) from MN State (Moorhead)
- What advice do you have for me? I am starting a consulting business.
- π·ββοΈ Understand work (you get paid) vs. activity (you are doing something)
- π΅ Ask clients to pay you market rate or better
- βπ» Work only with written contracts
- β³ Start with very short feedback cycles, one week long deliverables is recommended
- What advice do you have for me? I am a career changer.
- π Stop watching TV – use that time to learn
- πββοΈ Work with college students on projects for non-profits
- π Work on projects you care about.Β I’ve volunteered on tech projects for…
- Global Education – MONA Foundation
- Electronic Medical Records (EMR) – Smart Care in Lusaka, Zambia
- Technical Education – TKP Java (open source port of Logo library to Java) for middle & high school teachers
- Genomic Research – optimization of the VariantSpark (ultra-high dimensional data analysis) open source library – CSIRO Bioinformatics in Sydney, Australia
- Which technologies should I learn now?
- π§ Statistics & Machine Learning – cloud-based. Start here.
- π Cloud data pipelines & security – build working stuff for non-profits to learn. Start here.
- βοΈ Quantum programming patterns and languages. Start here.
- Where are your favorite cities and why?
- π¦πΊ Sydney – fun people, beautiful city, did I mention fun people?
- π©πͺ Berlin – art, music andΒ multiculturalism, anarchy and order co-existing somehow
- πΊπΈ Santa Barbara – stunning natural beauty, perfect weather, paradise (at a cost though)
- π³π΄ Oslo – solitude in a major city, jeg snakke lit Norsk ogsΓ₯
- What are your hobbies?
- π· Casual photography – take a look on 500px
- π©βπ³ Healthy cooking and buying from farmer’s markets – my fav
- π² Short bike rides (bought bike snow tires in 2021 too!)