Video games have been a passion of mine for almost my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are watching my father playing Disciples: Sacred Lands as a kid and asking a million questions. What I loved most about games was storytelling and the problem solving. As a result, I branched out into many kinds of games - board games, interactive fiction, and tabletop role playing games. As an adult, I went to University of Baltimore for video game design. I found that the classes I gravitated towards were coding because of the challenge of coding and the familiarity of it.

Growing up, I also sought out any kind of coding languages. From coding my Neopets or Myspace page (showing my age a bit here) to taking coding classes in high school - I've always jumped head first into the challenge of programming. It's a puzzle to be solved - and I love a good puzzle.

I went to college to design video games but found myself enjoying the programming most of all.

I started with Amazon in 2015 and quickly moved into a role called "problem solve" and then into a "Data Analyst" role. I was able to gain experience with coding and have been using VBA and Python to improve processes and create solutions. It has been an amazing opportunity and I love the times when I get to build and create to help my team overcome challenges. Those are the parts of the job I love the most and I would love to move into Software Engineering to solve problems on a larger scale.

It seems my love for video games and coding has led me in this direction and I am going to enjoy the challenge on the way there.