Welcome to our Meet ShareProgress series! Once a week, we’ll be posting a quick profile on a member of the ShareProgress staff. This week it’s Amar Shah, our Back-End Developer.
Where do you live? What do you love about it?
I live in Louisville, Kentucky, the largest city in my home state. Louisville is just the right size for my family. People are nice here, houses are affordable, the food’s good, so is the music, and the bars are still going at 3am. Not that I am. 🙂
What do you do at ShareProgress?
I’m ShareProgress’ new Back-End Developer, which means that I hack on the code for our analytics platform and internal tools. I spend most of my time fully immersed in the open-source Ruby (on Rails) ecosystem, which is a great place to be. Currently my focus is on increasing the quality and value of our flagship social-sharing product by fixing bugs and adding features. As SP takes on larger consulting projects, I’ll be working on those as well.
What work were you doing before this that prepared you for your role here?
As the first in-house developer at my last job, I inherited a production Rails web app with no automated tests and five years worth of accumulated technical debt. What’s that mean? Imagine you discovered that your handsome new home was completely tied together with shoestring. Rebuilding it out of real wood takes work, but you end learning a lot about houses.
What’s your favorite part of working at ShareProgress?
Geez, like everything. Let me quote you something I wrote a friend after my first week on the job: “It’s a really great confluence for me: work that I’m good at, in a culture and with people I really like, in a place that’s comfortable for me (my home office), with enough to be secure, making a change in the world I can really support. Also it sounds good when I tell people about it!”
What’s one piece of advice you would give about software development?
I’ll give you two, since I’m super generous like that:
- Don’t wait till you “know enough” to apply for jobs. You’ll learn a ton more on the job than you will from even the best online resources and university courses. Developer talent is in high demand; you don’t need experience to land a job, just a love of learning.
- Practice TDD, because it’s good for you.
What’s your favorite thing on the internet right now?
This picture of my daughter, Beatrix.
Is this the cutest kid picture ever? Let us know in the comments (the answer is yes)–and keep an eye out in upcoming weeks as we finish out the series with our last two ShareProgress team members!
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