I work in software. I’ve been in software since age 11 when I started with BASIC and within 2 years moved to learning C++ when my parents used every dime of their savings to buy me a 80386 PC, which I quickly outgrew. So then they spent every dime of their savings again to buy me $2.5k (~$5.2k equivalent in 2026) Pentium PC. That started me on a path of building all kinds of cool stuff and meeting some truly incredible people along the way.
In 2016, having a career conversation with my boss, I made a decision to jump over to the “dark side” and said, I want to manage a team. And that set me on a whole new and different trajectory from anything I’ve done up to that point.
Since that time, I’ve bounced between IC and leadership roles a few times. I worked independently as a consultant. I’ve worked as a CTO (and also at the same time as senior software engineer, junior engineer and customer support engineer and a part time CFO) in an early stage pre-seed startup. And I’ve had several opportunities to lead others as a manager and a director.
Where I’m At Now
Day Job
I am a Director of Software Engineering at Fenix24, Inc.
I don’t remember who wrote that (either Brené Brown or Kim Scott) but it was something along the lines of, there’s 5% of people who truly find a job and a role that aligns with their values and allows them to fully show up bring their energy/passion with them and those people confuse the fuck out of the rest 95% of us.
I feel truly lucky and always grateful to be in a position where I consider myself in that 5% and have felt that way almost through my entire career in software. Work isn’t always easy (and some months/years it is rarely easy) but it is always rewarding.
Outside Of Work
One of my personal back-burner / background projects that I’ve started back in 2018 is a search for other like-minded and like-hearted individuals who are on their own leadership journey.
Bonus points if…
- the person is in tech/software
- the person is in mid-management role (manager, director, VP)
- the person is local to Rochester, NY
Hello reader! Oh btw, if you made this far down the page, anything on this page resonates with you, hit me up on LinkedIn 😉