My FAQ

I get asked about my work and background frequently.  To that end, I’ll answer the most commonly asked questions here.

  1. Where do you live now? Where are you from?
    • ๐Ÿšค Moved to Minnesota to be closer to my family in 2019
    • ๐ŸŒพ Grew up in West Fargo, ND, yes, like the movie
    • ๐ŸŒŽ From 2007-2019 traveled globally, most years more than 50%
  2. What do you do? What is your job?
    • ๐Ÿ’โ€โ™€๏ธ 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
    • ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐ŸŽ“25-50% of my time is non-billable (learning & volunteering)
    • ๐Ÿ‘ผ In 2021 I added ‘Angel Investor’ to my resume – at Groove Capital
  3. Who do you work for? Who do you work with?
  4. Do you work at AWS, Google, Linked In, etc…? How many people have watched your courses?
  5. What is your educational background?
    • ๐Ÿ™‡โ€โ™€๏ธ Started college at age 15 (graduated at 19) from MN State (Moorhead)
    • ๐Ÿ“ Am a life-long learner and learn new languages & concepts continually
      • Led an online bookclub for ‘Programming Quantum Computers’ playlist here
      • In 2016 a good friend got cancer, in response 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.
  6. What advice do you have for me? I am starting a consulting business.
    • ๐Ÿ‘ทโ€โ™€๏ธ Understand work (you get paid) vs. activity (you are doing something)
    • ๐Ÿ’ต Ask clients to pay you market rate or better
    • โœ๐Ÿป Work only with written contracts
    • โณ Start with very short feedback cycles, one week long deliverables is recommended
  7. What advice do you have for me? I am a career changer.
    • ๐Ÿ“š Stop watching TV – use that time to learn
    • ๐Ÿ™‡โ€โ™€๏ธ Work with college students on projects for non-profits
    • ๐Ÿ“ Work on projects you care about.  I’ve volunteered on tech projects for…
      • Global EducationMONA Foundation
      • Electronic Medical Records (EMR)SmartCare in Lusaka, Zambia
      • Technical EducationTKP 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
  8. Which emerging technologies am I learning now?
    • ๐Ÿง  Ethical AI – machine learning, chatbots and more. Start here.
    • โš›๏ธ Quantum programming patterns and languages. Start here.
    • ๐Ÿ“” Cloud DataMesh – what comes after a Data Lake?… Start here.