Hi, I'm Sean.
I am a tinkerer and a teacher, focused on helping developers build better websites. Though I've worked with many languages and frameworks over the years, I now find myself in this wild and evolving world of decoupled JavaScript frameworks.
After a decade of freelancing and agency work, I'm now the Developer Experience Engineer at Stackbit, where I help developers of all skill levels. And I extend that effort through the content on this site.
When I'm not working with code, I'm either spending time with my family or (much-needed time) in isolation. Hiking. Baking. Reading. Writing songs and stories. Gardening. Eating sandwiches. Dancing to cheesy soundtracks with little kids. These are the things I enjoy.
No matter what I'm doing, I prioritize one thing above all else: Having a little fun along the way.
Completed HTML and JavaScript courses at the University of Cincinnati (UC).
Graduated from UC (with B.S. in Civil Engineering).
Began working in the marketing department at Messer Construction Co.
Began freelancing (on the side) using WordPress.
Launched The Polymath Lab, a blog with tutorials on a number of different topics. (Some early posts are still on the blog today, like this one.)
Adopted Stella. She has since perfected the art of balancing objects on her nose/head.
Began working at Topic Design (now defunct) as a Ruby on Rails developer.
Launch a CSS framework called Bones because I was too cool for Bootstrap. (Spoiler: This project did not go far.)
Built my first content management system (CMS), Cambium. It was a Ruby gem that could be plugged into any Rails app.
About six months later, I built a second CMS, Sapwood. It was a Rails meta framework for rapid website development.
Married my best friend! Of course, I built the wedding website and a honeymoon photo and journal site. I'd probably cringe at my old writing, but the photos are still some of my favorites.
Extracted technical articles from The Polymath Lab to launch Cobwwweb, a developer-focused blog.
Re-launched The Polymath Lab as a blog focusing on organization, productivity, communication, and inspiration.
Started a storytelling podcast called Squirrel Stories. The stories were recorded live and aimed to recapture storytellers' most embarrassing and awkward moments of their lives. It only lasted two seasons but was one of my favorite projects to date.
Left Topic Design to pursue full-time freelancing. It was a busy and stressful journey, and still one of the best decisions I've ever made.
Launched Sapwood v2.0, the last CMS I've built to date. After discovering Jamstack and headless CMS, I began buying instead of building. I miss working on CMS projects, though it was the right move.
Joined Ample (another small agency) as a senior developer. At the time we were building exclusively with Ruby on Rails.
After learning about Jamstack in 2017, we fully transitioned our development team at Ample to build websites with this new pattern. We went all-in on Gatsby and began experimenting with various headless CMS products.
My first child (Elliott) was born, and my life was ... different.
Promoted to manage all developers at Ample and be the technical lead on all short-term web projects. Director of Technology was the fancy title I gave myself.
Launched new, consolidated blog site on my personal domain (this one)! Sunset The Polymath Lab and Cobwwweb, although remnants of the Cobwwweb brand still live on in The Spinneret.
Gave my first tech conference talk at Next.js Conf 2020. It was called Everything is a CMS!
Creating content in
Cincinnati, Ohio (US)