Forrest Norvell

I have been a developer and professional software engineer for 25 years. My primary career experience has been with startups, and over time I've shifted from being deeply involved in solving hard technical problems and designing operational architectures to handling the no less difficult but equally fascinating world of supporting the growth and maturation of high-quality developers. Mostly, though, I just care about shipping products that delight customers and meet real business needs, and believe that architectural and implementation decisions should serve those goals, rather than the other way around. I learn quickly, communicate clearly, collaborate effectively, and care deeply about diversity, equity, and inclusion. I don't divide software engineering into "hard" and "soft" skills, and in the developers I work with I look for curiosity and an eagerness to collaborate more than a laundry list of skills. That said, I've used most tools (JavaScript / TypeScript / Node.js, Rust, Go, Ruby / Rails, Java / J2EE, AWS, GCP, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL) and built many kinds of systems (application servers, web services, command-line applications, auto-scaling containerization frameworks).