Hey there! I’m Ben, a software dev from Charleston SC, USA, learning how cold the northeast can be. You can call me a “traditional” software developer by trade given my BS in CS from Georgia Tech (go Jackets!). Today, I’ve channeled this technical know-how into open source web development as a full-time maintainer at Astro.
My core values are be caring, be clear, and be casual. Tech is a scary industry to jump into, especially without a sense of humor to keep your head on straight. So as long as I’m a web developer, my goal is to teach and build tools that help others become the best version of themselves. Well, assuming we adhere to semantic versioning principles 😉
I'm a full-time software developer at the Astro Technology Company, so I'm not looking for employment right now.
Still, here's all my skills / buzzwords you were going to search for: NodeJS, ES6, ReactJS, NextJS, semantic HTML, understanding of a11y, Angular 2+, SolidJS, SvelteJS, SCSS, NoSQL, OOP programming, C Basic, unit testing w/ Jest... Okay I'm getting tired typing.
I teach.
In brief...
- Creator of #WhiteboardTheWeb video series
- Top 500 author on DEV.to
- Built a fullstack bootcamp with in-person workshops
I blog a lot.
17 min read
Building serverless applications with Fauna + GraphQL
Get to reading
17 minBuilding serverless applications with Fauna + GraphQL
8 min4 Conference talks that changed my perspective as a web dev9 minA shiny-on-hover effect that follows your mouse (CSS) ✨9 minBuilding a sexy, mobile-ready navbar in any web framework8 minBefore building your next static site with React, consider thisI led a bootcamp.
Browse the curriculum
I asked around the dev community to understand how people learn best, and I found a variety of approaches from written documentation to recorded code-alongs. So, I tried to make a bootcamp that was the best of all worlds, incorporating video activites, written code samples, and in-person workshops to create one mega resource for becoming a MERN stack sorcerer 🔮
We've been teaching this material at the Bits of Good student org for 2 semesters now, so we've had a lot of time to work out the kinks. Click through to find our videos, resources, and project templates 100% free! A huge thanks to Andre Hijouay for creating the incredible v1 of the bootcamp, Max Karpawich for our lovely backend materials, and James Wang for contributing + teaching 😁
I create.
In brief...
- Full-time open source developer at Astro
- Framework-agnostic web developer, currently hyped for islands architecture
- Social good advocate: former Bits of Good Director of Engineering, Impact Labs contributor
Bits of Good Homepage
This was my first experience with rebuilding a brand from the ground up. We spend months in the design and user discovery phase to decide on the best logo, fonts, colors, and general "feel" of the website. A year later, we've built everything from a reimagined splash page to in-depth journey maps for all of our nonprofit projects. Oh, and it's built on the incredible Svelte + Sapper JS framework!
