Hi,

I'm Brandon

Also known as 

My professional life started out in the military, specifically working in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The positions that I held during this time were based on terrain analysis, some of those tasks stemming from an engineering focus and some stemming from a mission-specific focus. During my time in the military, I learned to leverage Python to automate repetitive tasks (i.e., coordinating analysis tasks, deliverable generation and distribution, etc.) and develop custom tools to fill gaps within a given team’s production process. It was during the later parts of my time in the military that I gained management experience. These were some of the best times of my career, but it was also during this time that I learned I am happy to be and remain an engineer, not management.

During my transition out of the military, I was still pursuing my bachelor’s degree, so to augment this, I attended a software engineering boot camp through Galvanize. This was one of the best learning experiences that I have had and probably ever will. The focus was on front and back-end web development, primarily using JavaScript with React and Express.

My first software development position was with a defense contractor, Jacobs (now Amentum, I believe), specifically working with the Jacobs NORAD Group. I gained a vast amount of experience in this position, working with tools such as TANZU Kubernetes Grid (TKG), GitLab CI/CD, and Apache Kafka. I worked on two different teams during this time, with the first focused on sustainment and the second focused on research and development. While on the sustainment team, I worked on a product that was installed as a desktop application written in Java using Swing. This application was a legacy application and used Apache Ant for its build system. The second team was a modernization effort that focused on transitioning to a web-based platform and leveraged newer technology, including Java with Sprint Boot on the back end and Typescript with React for the front end.

The defense industry was a great place to start after transitioning from the military, but I wanted to explore and learn as much about software development as I could, including the different facets of it. This desire to explore landed me at Microchip, working with the Memory Products Department (MPD). This was a neat position as I worked on a software firmware suite focused on two types of non-volatile memory: EEPROM and Flash. The tech. stack was also pretty cool: Typescript with Svelte, Tauri with Rust, C# for serial interaction, and finally, C (the king...of the 1970s). This was an incredible position, and I truly enjoyed my time here. It was also during this time that I completed my bachelor’s degree.

My next snapshot in time involved a company named Fastpath, which ended up getting acquired by Delinea. This was another position that I am thankful for, as I not only learned a lot but had some fun times. I also developed a strong disdain for Java, but that is beside the point. I became intimately familiar with Microsoft’s Azure during this time, as we leveraged Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) and many other products offered on the Azure platform for our infrastructure. In this position, I worked as a full-stack developer writing in both C# and Java for the back end and JavaScript with Vue for the front end.

That brings us to today. With the thought of using my experiences above, I decided to shift my focus into another facet of software development, DevOps, specifically DevSecOps (because security is important). I landed a position with a defense contractor Quantum Research International, working for Actalent. Unfortunately, I didn't pick the best time to be adventurous...DOGE. It was a fun position while it lasted though; primarily focusing on implementing security controls to conform to newly established requirements of the DOD for DevSecOps platforms and pipelines. In this position I worked with Azure DevOps establishing pipelines from scratch and, due to limitations with ADO, writing custom tools to compensate for missing security controls, such as commit-signing enforcement. It was a bummer to be laid off, but as usual I had fun and learned new things, this time more than just technical. I learned that I have an interest in DevOps, and decided to pursue a master's degree that concentrates on the DevOps portion of software development.