Hi, I'm TJ, a Software Developer and Architect from Halifax

Leader

I've been leading teams from 1 to 8 people since the early 2010s in roles from Senior and Lead Developer to Project Manager to CTO and Director of Product and Innovation. I lead by example and have been involved in helping several Co-op and Junior Developers launching successful careers, some of them now in senior level roles, nearly a decade later. The sharpest tool in my leadership toolbox is definitely empathy, it's important to be able to put yourself back into more junior roles, remember how other people helped you and how you wished things had've been different. For a deeper dive, see my Leadership Timeline, and my recount of my time as a volunteer CTO of Pursu.it.

Technology Advocate & Architect

I've spent a good part of my career driving the direction of my company's tech-stacks. I introduced one of my former companies to Laravel and successfully advocated the transition from a primary focus on content website development to Web and Mobile Application solutions backed with APIs, usually built in Laravel. I was also instrumental in introducing a second revenue stream at one of my former companies, introducing a hosting offering with a custom architecture to support out API and Web App development. For more on these developments and some of my web and WordPress automation tools, check out Automation and Architecture.

Programmer

This is obviously the nuts and bolts of my career. While today my primary technologies center around PHP, JavaScript, Linux, and Bash scripting, that wasn't always the case. I've worked in a large range of technologies from Vistual Basic to Java to C# to Ruby and a whole lot more; R, PowerShell, Python, I could go on. And I do in my Skills Inventory and Resumé.

Learner

I'm a very strong believer in continuous learning. The only way to survive in an industry like this is to keep on learning and always be open to new ideas and information. I have a very strong personal belief that everyone has something to teach you. Just as I've had plenty of opportunity to pass information on to newer and more junior developers, I've just as often learned from someone fresh out of school as I have those with a decade or more experience on me. I am a Life Learner, which is why I created a page to document my experiences in formal training in subjects including Unity Game Development, Data Science and R, Java Spring Boot, and SaaS.

Human (Resourcing) Human

In past roles I've been heavily involved in the hiring process as well as the resource management of developers. Speaking at post secondaries, application reviews, interviews and performance reviews have all been part of my past job descriptions. I've also dedicated myself to helping developers who are struggling to perform to their expectations; sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

Cultural Ambassador

Through my years of interviewing developers I developed a reputation for evaluating candidates not only for their skills but also for their vaule and cultiral alignment with my company. This exposed me to being invited to non-technical interviews. I'm certainly not an expert in sales or account management, but I've been involved in interviews for these roles to help make sure candidates really "fit" within our organization.

"I learned more working with TJ on my co-op than I did in school."

~ Evan Oake-Fullerton, Software Engineer

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