About Me
My Skills
Programming Languages
Frameworks
Tools
Hello, my full name is Gregory Patrick, but I prefer Greg. I'm a Software Engineer. I have over 15 years in development and engineering, and over 20 years in the technology field.
How It Began
I started my career like many others, by going to college. I didn't go to college to learn programming, or computer science like a lot of people in this field. I learning Networking, with a goal of wanting to be a server administrator.
My internship was with a networking group, handling VPN accounts, and then moved into a hardware troubleshooting and repair work. I enjoyed it, but it as during this time that I started messing around with several different websites. I build one that handled authentication and installation of different internal software. This was around the time that I realized how much I loved making things that work well and people love to use.
Not long after, I took another position doing support for Point of Sale systems, running a lot of SQL queries, doing reports, and helping people use the software. But my love of creating things on the web never faltered. I began creating a ton of websites on the side, usually using PHP with frameworks like Drupal or Wordpress. I eventually filled a need where I was working creating customer facing websites that people could use on a daily basis. I also created a number of internal applications that were used.
The Beginning of Web
Not long after, I began to realize that just using HTML and CSS wasn't going to cut it when using PHP tools, so I began teaching myself JavaScript. That's when the love to creating things really took a turn. I was approached with an offer to work on a Front End team with a major eCommerce site where I could really have an impact on creating something that millions of people could use every day. It's was both fun exciting.
The Turn To Mobile
After making an impact in the development world, I began searching for the next thing. I ended up getting an offer for an iOS role. This was the most daunting experience for me, as I had barely touched iOS or Swift before, I had only dabbled and played around with it in my spare time, but I persevered. I learned everything I needed to, with a lot of help from peers, to become a fantastic asset for that team, or any future team.
Conclusion
All these things have taught me how much I love to put my all into creating a user experience that people love to use, whether that be iOS, web, or some other new chapter that I'm not even seeing yet. My track record has proven that, not matter the challenge, I can take it head on, and make it amazing.