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https://github.com/chrisrzhou/dev-2020

My developer journey leading up to 2020
https://github.com/chrisrzhou/dev-2020

2020 reflections resume

Last synced: about 1 year ago
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My developer journey leading up to 2020

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README 

          
A resume of sorts, but mostly a writeup that will be committed as a checkpoint in my journey as a developer.



---



## Table of Contents

- [tl;dr](#tldr)

- [Projects](#projects)

- [Tools](#tools)

- [Interests](#interests)

- [Influencers](#influencers)

- [Experience](#experience)

- [Education](#education)



## tl;dr



### Scope

What data I cannot render, I do not understand.



With my projects, I try to manage or reduce the entropy of the problem space, and not add to it.



### Values

I value **specs/schema-driven** development.  A problem can only be solved if its boundaries can be well described.



I value working with people more than working on problems.  Human problems can only be solved by people working together.



I value learning, and respect the idea that everyone is both the teacher and the student.  From experience, real progress is rapidly achieved when everyone is able to learn and evolve a system together.



### Beliefs

I believe the cost of software development will eventually approach zero.  Therefore, I prioritize building **cheap** interfaces that are easy to understand/use/refactor/compose/deprecate.



I believe that a progressively fair world can only be achieved if tooling, knowledge, sharing, and learning is increasingly made **open**.



## Projects



### Active

- [`unified-doc`][unified-doc]: A unified way to work with all kinds of documents.

- [`tdast`][tdast]: abstract syntax tree spec and utilities for working with tabular data.

- [`react-globe`][react-globe]: `react` + `three` globe component.

- [`react-wordcloud`][react-wordcloud]: `react` + `d3` wordcloud component.



### Planned

- [`surveyless`][surveyless]: JAMStack serverless survey app

- `unidash`: JAMStack visualization app

- `geneticjs`: JAMStack application to setup, run and visualize genetic algorithms.

- `???`: open up scientific knowledge locked behind journals.



### Archived

- [`google-globe-trends`][google-globe-trends]: JAMstack application to easily render globe visualizations based on Google Trends using `react-globe`.

- [`wordcloud-generator`][wordcloud-generator]: create and share wordclouds.  Built using `react-wordcloud` and `unified-doc`.

- [`three-glow-mesh`][three-glow-mesh]: create glow mesh with any `three` geometry

- [`qraffiti`][qraffiti]: fun app to generate creative QR codes.

- [gists][gists]: My beginning journey into JS and dataviz.



## Tools



I am open to using any tools in the problem space.



### Using

`d3`, `docz`, `gatsby`, `git`, `graphql`, `lerna`, `md`, `mdx`, `microbundle`, `react`, `redux`, `netlify`, `theme-ui`, `three`, `typescript`, `xo`, `unified`



### Used

`flow`, `r`, `py`, `sql`



## Interests



Things that I never stopped working or caring about:



- [Open source][me]

- [JAMstack][]

- [unified][]

- Cheap development

- Documents, content, knowledge

- Dataviz



## Influencers



These people and initiatives heavily influence how I learn and approach problems:



#### People

- [@wooorm][wooorm]

- [@mbostock][mbostock]

- [@jxnblk][jxnblk]

- [@gaearon][gaearon]

- [@kikobeats][kikobeats]

- [@mrdoob][mrdoob]



#### Initiatives

- [`unified`][unified]

- [`gatsby`][gatsby]

- [`netlify`][netlify]

- [`theme-ui`][theme-ui]

- [`observable`][observable]

- [`ramaworks`][ramaworks]



## Experience



A resume of my job experience, with personal developments external to work highlighted in blockquotes.



### Frontend Engineer, *Evisort*

Feb 2020 - Present



Built UIs relevant for contract management and integration with NLP/ML pipelines.  Bootstrapped and scaled out a design system with progressive documentation.



> Dived deeper into the document/content/knowledge domain area.  Researched and used [`unified`][unified] to ship the [`unified-doc`][unified-doc] open-source project which provides a unified set of document APIs to solve similar problems across document formats.



### Frontend Engineer, *Roam Analytics*

Jun 2019 - Feb 2020



Built innovative and novel UIs that empower human workflows in NLP/ML pipelines (annotations, search, highlight).  Bootstrapped and scaled out a design system with progressive documentation.



> This was the start of my interest in the document/content/knowledge domain area.  At this point, I am fairly fluent with rapid and cheap UI development, design systems, and progressive documentation.



### Data UI Engineer, *Facebook*

May 2015 - Jun 2019



During my time at Facebook, I designed and shipped multiple data UI products.

- **Rabbit**: Tableau-like data exploration, visualization and dashboarding tool built in `react` + `redux`.

- **Survey Insights**: Visualization and insights dashboard capable of analyzing survey results from third-party sources (e.g. Qualtrics).  Built in `react` + `redux` + `graphql`.

- **fbFiddle**: Facebook JS fiddle supporting internal JS modules.

- Various data UIs and visualization components.



> I kept exploring simpler and open approaches of the problems I faced at work.  `react-globe`, `react-wordcloud` were direct formalizations of some work I did at Facebook.  Learned about JAMStack and migrated personal projects onto Netlify/Gatsby!



### Business Intelligence Analyst, *NRG Energy*

Apr 2011 - May 2015



Self-taught `r`, `py`, `sql`, `vba`, `js`, `d3` to automate traditional marketing reports managed in Excel.



> Unknowingly, my interests and work were already JAMstack-focused (despite the term not being official yet).  These pet projects were all statically built when I was just learning `js` and `d3`: https://bl.ocks.org/chrisrzhou



## Education



### B. in Physics & Mathematics, *Rice University*

2006 - 2009



[gatsby]: https://github.com/gatsbyjs

[jamstack]: https://jamstack.org

[netlify]: https://github.com/netlify

[observable]: https://github.com/observablehq

[theme-ui]: https://github.com/system-ui/theme-ui

[unified]: https://github.com/unifiedjs/unified



[gists]: https://bl.ocks.org/chrisrzhou

[google-globe-trends]: https://google-globe-trends.netlify.app

[qraffiti]: https://qraffiti.netlify.app

[react-globe]: https://react-globe.netlify.app

[react-wordcloud]: https://react-wordcloud.netlify.app

[surveyless]: https://surveyless.netlify.app

[tdast]: https://github.com/tdast/tdast

[three-glow-mesh]: https://github.com/chrisrzhou/three-glow-mesh

[unified-doc]: https://unified-doc.netlify.app

[wordcloud-generator]: https://wordcloud-generator.netlify.app



[me]: https://github.com/chrisrzhou

[gaearon]: https://github.com/gaearon

[jxnblk]: https://github.com/jxnblk

[kikobeats]: https://github.com/kikobeats

[mbostock]: https://github.com/mbostock

[mrdoob]: https://github.com/mrdoob

[wooorm]: https://github.com/wooorm

[ramaworks]: https://rama.works/