About Me

I understand you might be pressed for time, so if you’re here for my professional expertise, feel free to skip ahead to my resume and projects. On this page, I’ll share a bit about who I am beyond the code.

Personal Life Link to heading

Greetings,

I am Steven, a fortysomething husband, father of 2 monsters… I mean lovely children, occasional author, technophile, and software engineer with nearly 2 decades of experience.

My interests span beyond the world of software engineering. I’m an avid gamer, reader, writer, and enthusiast of astronomy, photography, and drawing, just to scratch the surface.

My journey began with programming in GW-BASIC on a Tandy 1000, progressing through C++ in high school, to an early career embracing web development technologies such as PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

After high school, I didn’t immediately dive into Software Engineering. I spent five years in security, during which I obtained my EMT License. This experience has notably shaped my ‘security-first’ approach in software development.

Professional Life Link to heading

From 2005 to 2015, I ventured into the world of consulting, providing IT services independently. I worked with numerous companies, including Gurus2Go, Barrister, Tier3 Support, and Accolade Support, Advance Health, among others. My roles were diverse, encompassing Help Desk services, WordPress plugin development, and crafting websites and communication systems with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. It was during this early part of my career I found Twilio and realized my love of developing communication systems.

From 2015 to 2022, I joined Smart Sales, a furniture leasing company, eventually leading their entire IT department. In a small company, versatility is key, and my role was approximately 75% Software Engineering, 20% Management, and 5% Help Desk. I led a nimble team of three engineers and managed our transition from costly, outage-prone dedicated servers to a more reliable, cost-effective AWS setup across multiple availability zones—cutting costs by over 60%. I spearheaded the revamp of the company’s CRM, call center, and customer portal, and designed an innovative browser-based WebRTC system for high-quality remote call recording with DVR capabilities. I remained committed to the company until its closure due to industry shifts post-COVID.

In 2023, I embraced a new challenge with Call Potential, an amazing company in the self-storage industry. There, I transitioned to C# and DynamoDB, using domain-driven development to create a voice-based AI agent for customer phone interactions. This integrated much of my experience with audio transmuxing, web sockets, Twilio voice, and communications to help my team bring the project to life. As CallPotential was acquired by Storable in 2024, I shifted seamlessly into the Storable family.