Hey :)

My first post!

Being a software developer comes with the wonderful aspect of having a supportive community around you. The best part of being a developer isn't the code—it's the community. In our field, it often seems like we are all working together to advance collectively, which is something I deeply appreciate and something I want to start contributing to (hence the blog).

Since graduating from college, I have been living in the world of innovative technology, which wasn't necessarily my initial plan, but I couldn't be happier. Now, at 29, I finally feel confident in both my coding and leadership—and I'm excited to share my innovative thoughts with you.

You may be thinking "innovative technology" sounds like a buzzword (and it probably is), but let me tell you what I've spent my career on. I started out in the RPA (robotic process automation) craze, doing what RPA does best—automating relatively simple tasks that were time-consuming and really took away from the quality of someone's workday. In other words, these were tasks people just didn't enjoy doing. We did this for a while until RPA ran its course (at least for us; I'll probably write more on that someday).

We then moved into BPA (business process automation), custom app development, and automation in general. This served us well for a long time, and we developed a lot of good products during this time. After years of automating processes, we found ourselves on the cusp of something revolutionary—generative AI with GPT-3 (pre-ChatGPT). My boss—someone I admire greatly for his visionary capabilities—had great foresight and started developing a few POCs (proof of concepts) using the API, and we never looked back.

It's funny looking back on those days because A) It wasn't that long ago, and B) It was just so comically simple compared to what we're seeing today in the generative AI realm. Starting these POCs and being early adopters really set us up for success. Fast forward to today, and we have a whole department dedicated to AI where I now manage the development side of our AI Innovation team.

We’re really focused on business and people problems that we can solve today with the AI tools we have already developed. In addition, we’re invested in driving adoption of our current tools as well. I always say—there is no point in making the tools if no one is going to use them. AI is a culture shift, and we have to work hard to get everyone’s buy-in.

So here's what to expect: I'll be writing about all things AI, development, and my thoughts on leadership and managing an innovative tech team. Let's build something great together.

I'd love to hear from you—what's your experience with generative AI been like so far? Drop a comment and let’s start the conversation. Thanks for reading today, and I look forward to building this community with you!

✌️Steven