I spent my high school and college years working nights in restaurants, in roles ranging from dish washing to pizza delivery. After deciding that the business degree I was working towards wasn't for me, I landed a job as a sales specialist at a large car dealership while I figured out what it was I wanted to do. I began toying with software and web development projects at home, and developed a passion for it quickly.
Two years later, after taking college courses on the side while working at the car dealership, I earned my Associate's degree in Computer Science from Hudson Valley Community College. On top of what I learned in school, I gained a lot of knowledge from taking various online courses, both paid and free. Codecademy.com was by far my favorite online tool for learning new skills. Check out some of the side projects I worked on!
So now I'm a full-stack web developer at MM Hayes, and I love what I do. I started out working on their web-based application, used for configuring the POS and self-service apps used by clients. About halfway through 2022, I joined the mobile app team and ended up working on both projects. I'm proud to say that I played a large role in the complete design overhaul of the app towards the end of 2022, and worked tirelessly with the project manager and QA to meet our end-of-year deadline successfully.
I still have my eye on finishing my formal education, with the goal of obtaining a Bachelors in Computer Science. This is something that I will hopefully find time for in the near future, though I'll only do so when I'm sure it will not affect my professional work. In the meantime, as a full-stack web developer at MM Hayes, I'll continue to further my web & software development skills by soaking up as much knowledge as possible. So for now, I'm looking forward to learning as much as I can and having fun doing it!