Makers & Making

TL;DR: I have moved to another city to start a new job because I believe that the best way that I can make the world a better place is by making great tools to help other creative people do their best work possible.

Turning thought into reality quickly is what drew me to programming when I was young. There is such a raw and incomparable power that you get when making things with code and with perfectly suited software tools.

Makers

A master cabinet maker can build the most ornate and beautiful cabinet with the simplest tools but it takes a long time and mistakes are costly. When mistakes are costly and the creative process is extensive, the cabinet maker's ability to experiment and grow is hindered, and the quality can suffer as a result. With better tools, (s)he can be more productive, experiment with new designs through prototyping, and improve their craft.

Making for Makers

I am a tool maker.

I've known this for some time now. My deepest satisfaction in my work has come from making someone else's job easier, more productive, and, most importantly, more enjoyable.

The master cabinet maker is arguably adding value to the world, no matter their productivity. However, as a tool maker, one has the ability to have a multiplicative effect on the world. By making tools for other makers the effect is arguably exponential.

I want to help all makers experiment, grow, and, ultimately, make the world better.

Building great tools is quickly becoming my guiding principle. I plan to do this by remembering that feedback is the most valuable skill to learning, growing, and making and incorporating this concept into the tools that I build. Great tools provide actionable and specific feedback quickly and directly.

Heroku Makes for Makers

Next Monday will be my first day at Heroku. I've used Heroku in some form or another since it was an online code editor for Rails.

The moment I knew I was going to join Heroku was when I was allowed to sit in on one of their all hands, where I heard Oren Teich talk about Heroku's guiding principle. More or less, he articulated my own guiding principle of helping makers.

I couldn't be more excited to start.