Early Exposure

As I reflect on my own early exposure to computer-aided design I think about my kid’s and what narrative they may create for themselves as they grow.

In middle school I rigged Ferdinand Magellan to dance across screens with Macromedia Flash MX. Mesmerized with every tween, mask, and line of ActionScript — a delight in computer-aided design and development took hold. An intrigue instigated.

Fast-forward 10 years. I worked my first job as a graphic designer for an NGO that helped victims of terror in the middle east. My earliest memory of Adobe Photoshop was sitting in an office — my boss asking me to nudge a menorah to the left and put some drop shadow under a strange looking script that ran right to left. My career began as a confused puppet.

As an undergraduate I took on a web and graphic design job with UplinkSpyder — here I learned about online marketing for small businesses building Wordpress plugins and designing graphics.With unwavering adherence to trends we stamped out each website.

At this juncture my career careened toward engineering. I built a number of SaaS products at various companies. I’ve become decent at my job — slowly realizing (1) how little I actually know, (2) how much I’ve forgotten, and (3) where much of my expertise lies. Other people say they have enjoyed working with me — which is encouraging.2