My Tech Journey

Hi! Laud here.

How it Started

Applying tech to solving challenges and making decisions is something I've always aspired to. Mostly because I come from a place (Ghana) where 'data literacy' and tech adoption are still largely in their infancy. So when I joined Studio Ten Four (STF) as an intern back in 2014, my interests ranged from web development to what I playfully call 'data wrangling'.

My Time at Studio Ten Four

At STF, I went from intern to contractor to part time to full time employee and eventually running the business. Being a Full Stack Web Developer at a small agency means you get to wear many different hats on any given day. This allowed me to polish many skills, such as project management, customer relations and business communications.

In 2016, I got a chance to spread my wings a little when moz.com offered me a 3-month contract position on their Inbound Engineering team. The exposure to the 'corporate tech world' did me good. Three months turned into 7, and I learned a ton. For example, Jira, sprints, scrum, daily stand ups and GitHub issues. Moz offered to extend my contract. However, I had some family issues to attend to in Ghana. This meant I had to wrap things up at Moz earlier than I would have wished.

Running Studio Ten Four

In early 2017, around the same time as I left for Ghana, things got even more exciting. My boss, Tim Ganter, decided to give up the agency life and take up a research role at Adobe. He offered me the opportunity to take over the day-to-day at STF, and I accepted the challenge. Now I had even more hats to wear, including marketing, invoicing and billing, support, writing proposals to bid on contracts and coordinating with contractors to deliver these jobs and more. While working remotely during my Ghana trip, I became a full time STF employee and have been locked into 'growth mode' ever since.

Also during this time, we were pondering the idea of pivoting STF into a data science company. So upon my return to Seattle, I took a semester of Python Programming at the University of Washington as a way of dipping my toes into the world of data science. I also completed a course in MongoDB databases, learned ReactJs, Docker, Strapi, TailwindCSS, Nodejs, AWS and Laravel, among many other technologies. However, it was Laravel that was to prove the most intrumental in shaping my interest in backend development.

Once again, in 2019, I left Seattle for Ghana to spend some time with my family. A need arose at the local Methodist Church for an application that would help them organize the church and surrounding communities for social causes and more. Solving real-life challenges with code is what I live for, so I got to thinking... this seemed like a job for Laravel!

At the time, I only had one Laravel app in my portfolio, the STF website. I had been looking for a project on which to hone my programming skills in general, especially on the backend. This is how MethodistCRM came about.

Read about MethodistCRM here.

What's next?

Right now, I'm looking for an opportunity to grow my career and learn new things. Sadly, this means that my role at Studio Ten Four is going take a hit. So first, I need to get a job. After that, I would like to continue improving this project. I already have a to-do list. If you have suggestions, feedback, or if you'd like to log in and checkout the staging site, or want to hire me =) drop me a line at [email protected].

UPDATE:

I got a job! I moved back to the US to join Salesforce, where I work with the Tableau Marketing Engineering team as a Software Engineer.

Thanks for reading!
- Laud

How it's going

First of all, my family (wife and our 3 kids) recently got visas and moved here, and now we're finally living together in the US after the long wait!

Also, In October 2021, I embarked on a significant new chapter in my career by joining Salesforce as part of the Tableau Marketing Engineering team. This opportunity has allowed me to leverage my skills and experience in a dynamic and innovative environment, contributing to the growth and success of Tableau's marketing initiatives.

At Salesforce, I've had the opportunity to work on a variety of challenging projects. One of the most rewarding aspects of my role has been solving complex problems with custom functionality written in PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, MySQL, and YML. This comprehensive involvement, from discovery through to design and UX refinement, stakeholder and cross-team communications, development, testing, documentation, deployment, and post-release monitoring, has honed my ability to deliver solutions that meet both technical and business requirements.

A significant part of my responsibilities includes maintaining regular updates and upgrades for Drupal core and modules to ensure the security and reliability of our marketing sites, notably www.tableau.com. This ongoing maintenance work is crucial for keeping the site robust and secure.

I have also taken on a leadership role in hosting weekly team demos and conducting pull request reviews as part of our Software Quality Assurance policy. This role has allowed me to help improve team processes, including standups, operations reviews, bi-weekly backlog grooming, retrospectives, and sprint planning. These efforts have fostered a collaborative and efficient team environment, contributing to our overall productivity and success.

One of my proudest achievements at Salesforce has been leading a project to automate the daily extraction of user-submitted 'Blueprint Assessment' data. Using a Dockerized MariaDB image inside a GitHub Actions workflow, we export this data to CSVs, authenticate with AWS via configured IAM policies, and upload the files to S3. This data is then transformed and consumed by the Tableau Decision Science team based in India, for actionable insights on user intentions with Tableau software.

Another notable project involved rebuilding authentication forms used for gating product download pages on tableau.com, significantly enhancing the user experience. Additionally, I implemented a global kill switch that allows for easy toggling of the gating feature via the Drupal UI, ensuring performance with unit tests.

This period has been one of immense growth for me, both professionally and personally. Working with talented colleagues who are experts in their fields has pushed me to continually improve my skills and knowledge. The collaborative and innovative environment at Salesforce has provided numerous opportunities for learning and development, helping me become a more effective and well-rounded engineer.

As I continue my journey at Salesforce, I am excited about the future and the opportunities that lie ahead. I remain committed to delivering high-quality solutions, fostering a collaborative team environment, and contributing to the ongoing success of Tableau's marketing initiatives.

Throughout my career, I've learned lessons that have been instrumental in my growth. Not least among them is the value of continuous learning and staying updated with the latest technologies and industry trends. Adaptability and openness to change are crucial in the fast-paced tech world.

Another lesson is the importance of effective communication and collaboration. This requires clear and concise communication to ensure everyone is aligned and working towards common goals. I have to say that despite many years spent in a client-facing role at Studio Ten Four, it took coming to Salesforce to learn how to properly collaborate with cross-functional teams and stakeholders.

Looking ahead...

I have several goals that I am excited to pursue. I'd like to broaden my expertise in cloud computing, particularly with AWS and other cloud platforms. I am also interested in exploring the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as these technologies continue to revolutionize various industries. Another goal is to enhance my proficiency in DevOps, automation and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.

Lastly, I would like to contribute to open-source projects and communities, sharing my knowledge and learning from others in the process. I should volunteer more!

Thanks for reading!
- Laud

Next chapter?

Dunno know yet, but I'm excited!