About Me
Hi! My name is Alex, and I'm a software engineer living in Upstate New york. I am passionate about building and maintaining great web and software experiences for everyone, especially those with disabilities. If you are in need of some assistance to make your website more accessible, feel free to contact me.
Project Examples
Spotlight
These are some projects that I am particularly happy with.
CVM Alumni
I created a new layout for the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine's Alumni web page. I worked with Alumni Affairs and Development to create new styles that captured the vision of their staff.
Javascript Calculator
I created a calculator originally for the freeCodeCamp front end certification. This was something that I put together quickly, and the original version is still available on codepen.io. However, a few years later I totally reworked this to look and feel closer to my original vision.
freeCodeCamp
These are a few of the projects I've built while working on my freeCodeCamp certificates. You can see more, as well as some of the other exercises I've completed by viewing my freeCodeCamp portfolio.
- Random Quote Generator - my first "real" Javascript project. It takes a random quote from an array and displays it, allowing you to tweet the quote if you'd like.
- Wikipedia Viewer - An app that uses the Wikipedia API to return results for a search term, specifically the title, descriptons, and url.
- Twitch Viewer - An app using the Twitch API to display information about certain streamers on Twitch.
- Pomodoro Timer - A timer that allows you to choose two intervals, and switches from one to the other as the timer finishes.
Work History
American Foundation for the Blind
Currently, I work at the American Foundation for the Blind as a Software Engineer, Digital Inclusion. Currently, the 2 biggest projects that I am working on involve Drupal and Gatsby.
Cornell University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Previously, I worked at The Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) as a Web Front-End Strategist. My primary responsibilities inclue:
- Review, assess, and update existing Drupal 7 websites and web products to meet WCAG 2.0 Web Accessibility standards and guidelines
- Help migrate content to and build 40+ academic sites in a new Drupal 8 environment
- Ensure all new work and websites meet Cornell established Web Accessibility standards
- Work collaboratively with CALS OIT team members and college stakeholders
- Perform Quality Assurance testing on work done on websites
Some of the things I've done outside of my regular responsibilities include:
- Work with Web Content Strategists to create and implement an analytics strategy
- Work with the CALS Editorial Team to determine development needs
- Provide Web Accessibility resources to Marketing and Communications Team
College of Veterinary Medicine
Previously, I worked at The Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine as a Drupal Webmaster and Web Developer. My primary responsibilities included:
- Staying in contact with several content managers to ensure they have all they need to be successful
- Developing new templates, layouts, and widgets to meet client needs
- Making necessary changes to styles and content to meet WCAG 2.0 Accessibility standards
- Developing new PHP features to extend Drupal template
Some of the things I've done outside of my regular responsibilities include:
- Working closely with another developer to test and implement a CI/CD process
- Giving presentations on topics related to specific technologies (such as CSS) and Accessibility.
- Training content managers on the use of auditing and analytical tools, such as SiteImprove
MPL Inc.
Before working at Cornell, I worked for a small local electronics manufacturer in Ithaca, NY. While my job as an inspector wasn't directly related to web/software development, I still took a lot from it.
As my day-to-day work involved using a microscope to inspect fine details on Printed Circuit Boards, I found my attention to detail vastly improved. Since we were often working with a wide variety of assemblies, a lot of the tools and techniques that are appropriate for one job are not right for others. This put me into a mindset of looking at the bigger picture of a task before I start deciding how to approach it, which is something that I have seen cause an improvement in my project work.
A large aspect of my particular responsibility was to operate an Automated Optical Inspection machine. As this was a machine that just about every assembly passed through, it was critical for me to develop a workflow that worked well to ensure that every assembly was inspected thuroughly, but efficiently. My drive to optimize not only the programs for the AOI machine, but also my process for running assemblies through, is something that I taken with me into my project work.
Also, since this was run by a computer that was not connected to the internet, I sometimes found myself looking for things to do while I would wait for some of the larger or more complicated assemblies to run through the program. One process I had to repeat fairly often was reformatting data from the assemblers into a format that the AOI program would accept. I had discovered the Powershell documentation on the computer, and wrote a few scripts to automatically format files for AOI, in order to save the company time, and make training future employees easier. The fact that I did all of this in time that would have otherwise been wasted is something that I am really proud about.
Best Buy
Before working at MPL, I worked at Best Buy for a few years. I worked in multiple departments, including Inventory/Merchandising, Sales (Mobile and Computing) and Customer Service. This gave me a great opportunity to learn as much as I could about all kinds of products, technologies, and customer needs. I also got used to different systems, processes, and settings as I moved positions, and as the company adopted new technologies.
I loved Best Buy for their company values, and for their solutions-based approach to sales. I always took pride in living the core values while I was at Best Buy, and I still try to follow them, as some have become my own core values. I also go into client meetings with the same mindset that I would go into sales at Best Buy with: building a complete solution to meet every need.
Skills
I have been working on a variety of front-end technologies, and plan to expand my knowledge onto other web and software development technologies in the near future.
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HTML5 and CSS3
I have been building a solid foundation on HTML and CSS, with a heavy focus on responsive, mobile-first design. While I have been focusing on getting a depper understanding of pure CSS, I have used Bootstrap, and have also done some exploring with SASS and LESS.
Javascript
I have worked through several books, and other resources, to build up my foundation of Javascript knowledge. While I have been focussing mostly on vanilla Javascript, I have also worked in several different Javascript frameworks.
Git
Many of my projects are hosted on GitHub, both for convenience of hosting on GitHub Pages, but also as a way to keep track of my progress over time, and a great way to share my projects with others. I have also used git within BASH, and a few other versions of Git.
React
I have made several Single Page Applications using React. I have worked both independently and collaboratively in React, fully embracing the modular nature of the framework.
Drupal
I am currently working with Drupal at Cornell, and have also begun work on some personal websites using Drupal. I have experience in expanding PHP template files, as well as the administrative side of Drupal. I have also used a few other CMSs.
More
I am always seeking opportunities to learn something new. I have been working through books and lessons to learn a variety of languages including Ruby, Go, Assembly, and much more. My "Misc Learning" GitHub repo is a great place to see what I've been working on.
Contact
Here are some ways you can contact me.