I started programming 11 years ago while in high school. The first website started as a pretty basic Wordpress blog, but turned into a freelance business where I built websites for local businesses. It felt like the best option especially compared to other job opportunities available. There was not too many options for a 16 year old in my town.

Solving problems and working with business owners felt good. At least once you get to the solution. So I stuck with it and studied software engineering  in school. Every chance I had I worked. I can't remember a week throughout school where I didn't have some sort of job or work, even up to 30-40 hours a week at times. This meant countless side projects, a school IT job, teching assistant for classes, remote startup gigs, and summer internships.

All of this led to working at a software firm near my home town in St. Louis, MO, receiving a percentage of the company as part owner and building a new team from scratch focusing on ERP systems for small businesses.

Over 5 five years, we would build up the team to 5 developers, a project manager, and a support team member. The overall revenue of the company quadrupled, with roughly half of that coming from the ERP team.

During that time, I had a few itches to scratch. I started my own business for consulting, freelancing, and writing. I also started buying rental real estate in my home town.

I spent roughly 2 years freelancing. It was an interesting and useful experience. I learned about working in software from a new perspective and learned about my own ambitions. After looking back at the end of those 2 years, I decided to go a different direction and chase a dream of working in the games industry. When I started college, I was excited about the potential of working in games, but was convinced that it's not impossible. Outside of applying for a handful of jobs at big studios, I didn't do much to pursue it.

On top of that, I wanted to double down on a role in tech. Throughout my entire career, I had always done more than what a typical programmer would do. I decided to move forward with engineering management specifically, because that's where I felt I could have the biggest impact and it was a part of my job that I enjoyed the most.

That's where we are at today. In 2022, I started work at PlayStation. I still manage a few rental properties, answer the one off email asking for my advice, and write blog posts, but most of my time is spent focused on building the best products possible at PlayStation.