Hi! I'm Derek. I was born in Florida, raised in Cleveland, and reside in lovely Boise, Idaho. I skipped the traditional college route early on because I was too busy living out of a van, playing music, and touring the country.

Eventually, the road caught up with me, so in 2013 I decided to mix things up in a big way and joined the U.S. Army. It was a crash course in growing up. A deployment to Afghanistan introduced me to an incredible mix of people from all walks of life and taught me how to stay cool, calm, and collected when things get chaotic.

While deployed, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what I wanted to do after. I’ve always enjoying creating and learning how random things work holistically, and that’s when the computer science lightbulb finally went off. After getting back, I dove headfirst into software engineering. I quickly realized coding is exactly like being a mechanic—except the grease is just a massive coffee habit.

The tech world moves fast, but I'm excited to be here to build cool stuff and relationships, so please reach out!