Experience

Principal Software Engineer at Simple Thread, 2020 – present

  • Interconnection and hosting capacity
    Grid data models and testing for software that helps utilities study where new generation and load can connect.
  • Generator performance monitoring
    Helped turn a national lab research tool into a commercial product.
  • Outage planning
    Modernized a utility's outage planning software and worked with its engineers on modern development practices.
  • Study performance
    Made long-running utility studies much faster with distributed computing.
  • Developer at OccasionGenius, 2019 – 2020
    Built web scrapers at an early-stage startup.

Skills

Domain and engineering

  • Power systems
    Siemens PSS/E, PowerGEM TARA, CIM (IEC 61970/61968), interconnection studies, hosting capacity, outage planning, PMU-based generator monitoring
  • Engineering
    Python, Rust, Ruby on Rails, Django, Vue, React, PostgreSQL, AWS, distributed computing, API design, Claude Code (Certified Architect)

How I work

What I believe about building software

  • Less is usually more
  • Good design feels obvious in hindsight
  • Docs should be written by people
    Generated docs bloat, drift, and bury what matters. Someone should own every claim.

Writing

Technology, the grid, and life. Favorites marked with an asterisk.

Talks

Conferences and podcasts

Reading

Some favorites, and the full list in roughly the order I read them

  • Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
  • The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
  • Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton
  • A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
  • The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton
Show all books
  • The Ranger's Apprentice Series, John Flanagan
  • The Divide, Elizabeth Kay
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling
  • Graceling, Kristin Cashore
  • Eragon, Christopher Paolini
  • The Warrior Heir, Cinda Williams Chima
  • The Wizard Heir, Cinda Williams Chima
  • Hatchet, Gary Paulson
  • Peak, Roland Smith
  • Everlost, Neal Shusterman
  • Anthem, Ayn Rand
  • Animal Farm, George Orwell
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams
  • Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare
  • Antigone, Sophocles
  • The Narnia Series, CS Lewis
  • Rappaccini's Daughter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
  • Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
  • Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
  • All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
  • Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
  • The Stranger, Albert Camus
  • The Assault, Harry Mulisch
  • Perfume, Patrick Suskind
  • Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
  • The Piano Lesson, August Wilson
  • The Lion and the Jewel, Wole Soyinka
  • The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
  • The Wise Man's Fear, Patrick Rothfuss
  • Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks
  • The Martian, Andy Weir
  • Welcome to Nightvale, Joseph Fink
  • The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
  • Evolution, Carl Bergstrom
  • Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance
  • Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
  • The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin
  • A Small Porch, Wendell Berry
  • The Bible, multiple authors
  • The Emerald Mile, Kevin Fedarko
  • Mere Christianity, CS Lewis
  • Infinite Reality: The Hidden Blueprint of Our Virtual Lives, Jim Blascovich
  • Chaos: Making a New Science, James Gleick
  • There's This River... Grand Canyon Boatman Stories, Christa Sadler
  • Raging River, Lonely Trail Tales Told by the Campfire's Glow, Vaughn Short
  • Dune, Frank Herbert
  • A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles *
  • The Unbroken Thread, Sohrab Ahmari *
  • SQL Cookbook: Query Solutions and Techniques for Database Developers, Anthony Molinaro
  • Thoughts for Young Men, JC Ryle
  • Spurgeon's Sermons Vol 1, Charles Spurgeon
  • East of Eden, John Steinbeck
  • On the Road, Jack Kerouac
  • A Timbered Choir, Wendell Berry *
  • The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis *
  • Reforesting Faith, Matthew Sleeth
  • Gilead, Marilynne Robinson *
  • Dawn of the New Everything, Jaron Lanier *
  • Magic Kingdom for Sale -- Sold!, Terry Brooks
  • Peopleware, Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco
  • Polished Ruby Programming, Jeremy Evans
  • God, Technology, and the Christian Life, Tony Reinke *
  • The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, John H Walton
  • Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai, Matti Friedman
  • The Fifth Season, NK Jemisin
  • The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton *
  • The Confessions, Augustine of Hippo *
  • End of the Affair, Graham Greene *
  • Just Enough Research, Erika Hall
  • Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects, Bertrand Russell *
  • Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
  • The Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor
  • Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett *
  • Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton *
  • The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
  • Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy *
  • The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov *
  • A Ballet of Lepers, Leonard Cohen
  • How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill
  • Moby-Dick, Herman Melville