About Me

I build things for the web

Hello! My name is Owen. I am a software developer based in Chicago, IL.
I have a love and passion for all things creative. I especially enjoy creating things that live on the internet. Whether that be websites, applications, or anything in between.

I studied at Northern Illinois University majoring in Biology. Shortly after finishing my studies, the three adults in my life, that being my mother, father, and grandfather fell fatally ill and were simultaneously hospitalized. I immediately switched gears and became a full-time caretaker. During this time, I would spend the day making sure my family, especially my grandfather, received the best medical care they needed.

Most people leave university unsure of what their next plans are. It’s an exciting time of discovery and exploration. For me, I was not afforded that luxury and spent every waking hour caretaking for my family.
Although my story is unconventional, I did eventually make that ‘discovery’ when I walked into a Barns & Noble and found a book on “how to code in Python”. It intrigued me and I could not put the book down. This would lead me down a path of discovering that I love coding and building things. And so throughout the day, I would caretake for my parents and grandfather. Working with nurses and doctors and therapists. But every night, when my day was done, I would crack open books and slowly learn to code. I did this everyday with the dream of becoming a full stack developer.

I also found a passion for sneakers and sneaker culture and started a small resell business of high ticket, hyped, very hard to attain shoes that collectors would buy. Sneakers became my creative outlet in more ways than one. It taught me how to run a business, how to manage inventory, generate sales and maintaining relationships with suppliers and customers, etc...

In between learning how to code and running a small business, I made a ton of friends along the way. I made these connections through networking virtually and in-person, and eventually these friends would help me transition into my new role as a technical support specialist at Network Merchants Inc (NMI), a payment gateway company based in Chicago.

This new role at a tech company gave me the opportunity to learn about new technologies as well as how to collaborate with developers and various teams and tech leads. My experiences in caretaking, running a small business, and a role in technical support has taught me much about being organized, paying attention to detail, problem solving.

As a software developer I utilize these skills to build web applications that meets the needs of users.