Oh, Hello. My name is Chris Kakos. I am a full stack software engineer and have been advised by mentors and career coaches alike to introduce myself as such. I also recognize there is a pile of applicants who present themselves similarly and sense the importance of describing why I am the candidate you're in search of.
I've had an infatuation with technology as far back as I can remember. It started with a child and his Talkboy. As I grew older the tech would evolve from Tiger handheld games to Discmen. From Nintendo consoles to Personal PCs. From pagers to cellphones. iPods to iPad Pros.
I remember using Slack when it was AOL Instant Messenger. The only way to use Spotify at that time was traveling to the nearest Sam Goody and listening to samples of the most current music on the wall that housed Singles for purchase. People actually bought cassette tapes with one song recorded to them and an instrumental version if you were lucky.
For every year passed, technology would double in size. I was front row for the controversy generated by Napster and the emergence of ebaumsworld.com. A time where digitized systems were card catalogs and internet was dial-up. Back when Twitter was an RSS Feed. I walked those halls.
My passion evolved from output to input when I began programming. Technically, my first line of code was copied and paste to a MySpace profile layout. I'm still proud of that code. Not really but it introduced me to HTML and CSS. I built basic static sites which never went live. Memories.
I eventually enrolled in courses at an accredited county college to begin a degree in Computer Science. It was a challenge. Math is cool up until calculus, then it becomes a complete asshole. Java was interesting but Assembly code was a far ways away from HTML. I wasn't always sure of what I was doing but knew I wanted to become a software engineer.
Setbacks took place but I persevered and took a semester to attend a software engineering immersive program in New York. It was an intense experience but my understanding of core programming concepts grew deeper when I learned object-oriented design patterns. There's nothing like that feeling when it finally clicks. I live for that.
At this point, I was designing schema models for back-end architecture and learning how to persist secure data. Building UI on the front-end out of React components and fetching http requests through middleware to interact with databases, APIs and micro-services.
The list of technologies that I currently work with is extensive and continues to grow. I have built SPAs, PWAs, and CLI applications in ecosystems surrounding Ruby on Rails, Vanilla JavaScript, React/Redux, and Go with relational, non-relational, and cloud-platform databases.
I am a published author. I have written an assortment of articles that have been curated a distributed through Medium. I enjoy learning and have a skill-set of communicating technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
I love sports. I am a disgruntled New York Knicks fan who believes Patrick Ewing was assembled at Area 51. I like the Raiders because of Bo Jackson and have swapped back and forth between Mets and Yankees since 1986. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
I am all about persistence. I work on my craft everyday and continuously improve my portfolio. I build full stack test-driven architecture that is secure. I am passionate about all phases of the development life-cycle and enjoy working with APIs more than a person should. I see myself thriving on an e-commerce platform or programming IoT but am open to all opportunities.
Hire Me
Reach out on Linkedin
Check out my code at Github
Best Regards,
Chris Kakos
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