why I build
selected work · 2022 — now
Two App Store apps, a volunteering platform, a wellbeing programme, an enterprise feature that made a million in a quarter — and the site you're on.
Software that shows up for you, the way you show up for everyone else.
Founder & sole engineer
Prayer, fasting and the Word — built around a Rule of Life.
Creator
today
Coptic Daily Companion
Park the idea before it steals your day.
Creator
today
IdeaPark
A multi-week wellbeing programme for Action for Happiness.
Head of Tech, Action for Happiness
Recording service + storage that launched to GA at $1.1M ARR.
Backend Software Engineer, Pendo
A personal site with four moods and a pixel platformer hiding inside.
Designer & engineer
LEVEL 1 · HOME
PRESS START
by the numbers
the human behind the commits
I found coding at a John Deere internship, spent four years building backend systems at Pendo, and now build things that help people show up — for others, for their faith, for their ideas, for themselves.
little updates
Future me might forget why I made this site or why I am publicly sharing embarrassing thoughts and there’s a few reasons I’m doing this. 1) with where we’re headed with AI, I truly believe we will begin to lose our sense of voice. I’ve already caught myself typing an email and thinking in the tone of AI out of habit and reading it so damn much. 5 years from now, I still want to be in touch with what my tone actually is, specifically in written form. I can feel myself becoming more in-genuine by the minute virtually and in such a virtual world, I just feel like that’s not a good idea. 2) I honestly wanna remember what the hell i was thinking during this period of my life. It has been one hell of a year and probably the most crazy of my life, between work and family, and I just want to remember how I thought during it. 3) I think to an extent I do care about what people think. I don’t want people to think I’m dumb or boring or lame and I feel like sometimes that prevents me from reaching my max potential for Yura. So having this on the internet kinda forces me to just not give a shit, lay it all out there, and realize nobody cares. 4) lowkey fun
So obviously this might be a little exaggeration, but also maybe not? I was thinking about the fact that 100 years from now (or maybe just 2 💀), when we've reached ASI, when AI is completely self-sufficient and has surpassed human intelligence and is in full world-domination mode, they may look back at today and think "damn, what idiots would quite literally progress technology to the point that they give up their own sense of humanity." I mean, one could argue a truly intelligent being would weigh future consequences more heavily than present pleasure. That there would be more care for the implications of intense greed and pure selfishness on future generations and the place we call home (cough the earth). But ironically, we call the people who have somehow logically convinced themselves that money, power, and the sense of "being ahead" are what matter... smart. And I mean, book smart, maybe. But common sense? That could be up for debate. And then that begs the question: what species is lowkey so dumb that they're totally okay with essentially eliminating their own kind for the sake of making bigger houses and storing more unused money in big buildings we call banks? Once again, a little irony: people stockpile money to "protect their bloodline and children and children's children," but how are they gonna use all that 💸 when they've handed over their lives to some bot? I realize this is probably a very ridiculous point of view, but also realize that less than 3 years ago, we still typed code questions into Google and scrolled through random Medium articles and Reddit, and we called our god StackOverflow, and literally within months, that all became entirely irrelevant. Annnyyyways, guess this is why we get taken over. Maybe we were never as intelligent as we thought to begin with. 🙂↔️🥲 This is an incomplete thought and I wanna think through it more one day when I have a moment, but just needed to brain dump, yanno.
I just recently decided that I need to set some boundaries between me and work mode because I really struggle to turn my brain off at night, which makes me unable to sleep. My sleep schedule is a complete disaster for context. My Oura ring has literally adjusted to my 3-4am sleep pattern so much that I now get a lower score when I attempt to sleep before 12 because it claims I have late evening chronotype, which allegedly you can’t change? I’m not convinced and determined to change it. I just started my new role at AFH, and since they’re in the UK, they’re basically about to finish up their day at the time I’m waking up, and I end up feeling behind no matter how hard I’m working. So I’m actually pretty glad this is forcing me to get my sh** together in that regard. Anyways, all of this to say that I just got a membership at Switchyards (a coworking place) amd WOW. I can already feel a shift in my mental. My goal is to work hard all day there, then when I leave, laptop is shut, brain is turned off, and it’s truly time to destress and relax. I’ve only done this 2 days so far but I can sense a weight off of my shoulders somehow and I’ve also been way more productive. Not to mention that I’m not getting distracted since I’m not at home near my family while working. Sooo note to self: tina, do not ever not have access to a coworking place again. Full work from home is NOT for you.
from the journal
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