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A little bit about myself, I am a software developer turned owner of a software consulting/contracting firm: Back Pocket Labs. I started my career joining BlackBerry (Research In Motion, at the time) as a co-op software tools developer for the networking team. I mainly worked on automations that test network throughputs. After a pernicious year (see numerous articles on BlackBerry decline), I came back to the university and finished my degree in computer science with specialization in network options. With my degree, I ended up working for a local company: Helm Operations, a maritime software company that deals with safety, compliance, and scheduling. Instead of working with lower level code on network and protocols, I work with javascript, html, css, and use them to write client facing webapps. I quickly progressed through the company ranks, in the end, serving as development lead. After a few years, I feel like I was ready for a new challenge. At the beginning of the pandemic, I decided to leave the Helm Operations and start my own consulting and contracting software company. The first year was just by myself: contracting, and networking (not the TCP/UDP type 😂) with other people in the industry. The company picked up more steam as time went on. Now Back Pocket Labs have has 4 developers, some full-time, some sub-contractors. We managed to be profitable every year, and deliver amazing work that I am proud of to our clients.
I like to use this blog to casually write about some of my thoughts throughout my journey (I’m not a big fan of spamming stuff on LinkedIn). The topics will often be on software development, team management, and some of the startup issues I faced. Occasionally I will probably rant about life or other random things. While everyone’s circumstances are different, I hope some of my experiences would be similar to someone else’s, and maybe some of these articles could give them some additional insights.