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austin r00ks

software engineer

Curious and persistent, building quality experiences.

ab0ut

I am an experienced software engineer passionate about learning and building performant, correct applications. I've been recognized as a individual performer and as a team player.

My engineering journey started on whim asking an employer for a internship in a stairwell and becoming a product person for a small SaaS app. From there I began building Python, JavaScript, and Rust apps.

Outside of programming for work, I enjoy programming for fun, reading, and surfing Lake Michigan when time and weather and children allow.

w0rk experience

  1. Company
    Northwestern Mutual
    Software Engineer
    I work on the client website building new products, supporting legacy apps, and contributing to interal libraries to support easier development. Helped transition the org to Graphql. Lead the team in testing and performance strategies for our React code and subgraph.

    Was recognized as the individual contributor of Q2 2023 of Northwestern Mutual’s web and mobile engineers for having decreased the entire client website’s LCP by ~500ms. Also decreased the SSI header's size by 57% (2 MB).
    React Redux TypeScript Express Graphql
  2. Company
    Oxidized Systems
    Owner, Software Engineer
    Previous work includes converting a headless JS app into a Qwik/ Qwik-City (TypeScript) frontend and an Actix (Rust) backend for web and native mobile clients to consume.

    The frontend scores across every Lighthouse metric on both web and mobile. The backend test coverage is over 65%.
    Rust Actix TypeScript Qwik Postgres
  3. Company
    Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis
    Software Developer/ Administrator
    I built and maintained internal web apps (Flask and Django) for critical agency wide functions, e.g. critical incidents, employee management. Also administrated and built out instances of SharePoint and EHR (Credible).
    Python Django Flask Postgres HTMX
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