After a brief time away, I returned to work with the company I had left when I moved to a new province—this time as a contract worker.Rather than be salaried, I was able to work out an arrangement where I would work 100% remotely and only bill for the time I spent coding for them.This worked well for everyone, as I was able to keep my schedule flexible and they were able to get the most out of me while keeping their own costs to a minimum.I honed several skills during… Show more After a brief time away, I returned to work with the company I had left when I moved to a new province—this time as a contract worker.Rather than be salaried, I was able to work out an arrangement where I would work 100% remotely and only bill for the time I spent coding for them.This worked well for everyone, as I was able to keep my schedule flexible and they were able to get the most out of me while keeping their own costs to a minimum.I honed several skills during this time, among them how to self-start (seems easy until you need to do it with nobody but you holding yourself responsible). I also boosted my communication skills, since face-to-face daily interactions were no longer an option. Show less

Every other week for two years I created a new DIY video for the Geek & Sundry Vlogs channel."How does this relate to programming?" you might ask. I believe that people are more than just developers, and everybody has their passions. Creating things is one of mine, and it's one of the reasons I love developing software.

All things must come to an end, and for the advertising company I was working for, this was the year. But out of the ashes of Epic rose a brand new company, Kinetic Social.A brand new company with a brand new set of challenges awaited me at Kinetic Social. Building on the skills I learned at Epic, I worked with a small but highly effective group of developers to create a brand new platform in a very short time.We began with Facebook, integrating their Ads API into our internal… Show more All things must come to an end, and for the advertising company I was working for, this was the year. But out of the ashes of Epic rose a brand new company, Kinetic Social.A brand new company with a brand new set of challenges awaited me at Kinetic Social. Building on the skills I learned at Epic, I worked with a small but highly effective group of developers to create a brand new platform in a very short time.We began with Facebook, integrating their Ads API into our internal system and then started adding custom features to improve upon the core api set. The most notable of these is a multivariate testing tool which allowed for multiple campaigns to be created with minimal input, followed by reporting that allowed for insight into how each campaign was performing.We were also one of the initial companies authorized to integrate with the Twitter Ads API, allowing us to create campaigns there as well. This involved creating a brand new Rails plug-in, as well as a whole range of new capabilities to our core platform.All of the developers on the team were left to work almost completely autonomously. I frequently worked remotely, and I was self-motivated enough to ensure that all work was completed in a timely manner. Show less

This might as well just say EpicAds. The company was renamed, but the work stayed the same.

This company was essentially a rebranding of AzoogleAds. Most of the job requirements stayed exacly the same, but it gave the company a chance at a fresh new start.The entire user internal interface was re-written using Ruby on Rails and MySql. We also took the opportunity to change the ad server from a single file of spaghetti code to a highly available, scalable, redundant, well-oiled machine with Erlang, Mnesia and RabbitMQ.I think one of the most important skills I learned… Show more This company was essentially a rebranding of AzoogleAds. Most of the job requirements stayed exacly the same, but it gave the company a chance at a fresh new start.The entire user internal interface was re-written using Ruby on Rails and MySql. We also took the opportunity to change the ad server from a single file of spaghetti code to a highly available, scalable, redundant, well-oiled machine with Erlang, Mnesia and RabbitMQ.I think one of the most important skills I learned during my time here was how to communicate well with project managers who know what it is they want but don't necessarily have the technical background to know what to ask for. Working with them to come up with innovative solutions to their tasks helped reduce frustration, increase productivity and brought the team together so that we were all working towards the same goals. Show less

This is the job that helped make me the programmer I am today. Fresh out of college, and brand new to working in an office environment, I went from cowboy coder to a developer with a pretty solid toolbox of skills.It turns out there is more to coding than just writing code. And this is where I truly learned that. For example, I was able to add source control, agile methods, quality assurance and the ability to translate client requests into feature sets. And these skills were learned… Show more This is the job that helped make me the programmer I am today. Fresh out of college, and brand new to working in an office environment, I went from cowboy coder to a developer with a pretty solid toolbox of skills.It turns out there is more to coding than just writing code. And this is where I truly learned that. For example, I was able to add source control, agile methods, quality assurance and the ability to translate client requests into feature sets. And these skills were learned while operating inside a high speed, high pressure work environment. Show less