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Hey, I'm Ris​

I live in Pittsburgh. I write software, coach teams, read too many books, and make a pretty solid oat milk latte. I've been building things on the web since 2004 and writing code in some form since '96.

By day I'm a Scrum Master at General Dynamics. Before that I spent nine years as lead developer on ArchiTECH, and I used to maintain the Selectize project, among other things. I've always been drawn to open source and the way small contributions compound into something bigger than any one person.

This site is where I write about the things I care about: software engineering, Agile, DevOps, mental health in tech, and the messy work of growing a career without losing yourself in the process.

The Short Version​

I'm a problem solver. That's the thread that runs through everything I do, whether it's untangling a gnarly deployment pipeline, helping a team figure out why their sprints feel off, or debugging a recipe that refuses to come together.

I've spent most of my career in web tech, data modeling, and human-computer interaction. I also coach and mentor developers who are early or mid-career. If you've ever felt stuck and wished someone would just talk through it with you, that's a thing I like doing.

The Longer Version​

In January 2020, two things happened at once.

My son Lyric was born. He's incredible, and he came into the world with medical complications that rewired how I think about time, priorities, and what "important" actually means. A few weeks later, the pandemic hit and rearranged everyone else's life, too.

I'd been heads-down in code for years. Good at the work, not great at the self-reflection. Lyric changed that. I started reading more, having harder conversations, and paying attention to the parts of my career I'd been running on autopilot. The thing that helped most? Writing about it. And then sharing what I wrote.

I revived this blog and started producing actual content instead of just constantly tinkering with the design. I started mentoring. And a weird thing happened: helping other people think through their careers made me better at my own. More focused. More intentional. Less afraid to say "I don't know" out loud. I'm still learning and figuring it out, but that's the point. The process is the product, and I'm here for it. I'm radically human, and open about the fact that I don't have it all together.

That's still what drives this site. I'm not here to broadcast wisdom from a mountaintop. I'm here to think out loud, share what I've learned (and what I'm still figuring out), and maybe make someone's Tuesday a little less lonely.

Outside the Terminal​

I'm not only a keyboard. Here's some of the other stuff:

Dogs. I have two: Sasha, a teddy-bear, and Bibi (we call him Bean), a Maltese. They have strong opinions about my meeting schedule.

Music. I play several instruments, none of them particularly well, and only for myself. It's one of the purest creative outlets I have because nobody's grading it.

Reading. I go through books in waves. Some months it's technical stuff, some months it's fiction, some months it's whatever the library algorithm throws at me.

Cooking. I genuinely love food. Making it, eating it, talking about it. There's a whole recipe section on this site because I couldn't help myself.

Movies & music. I consume a lot of both. I like the way a great film or album can change how you see an ordinary afternoon.

Working With Me​

If you're curious about how I think, communicate, and collaborate, I wrote a more detailed README. It covers my personality type, working style, communication preferences, and the assumptions I bring into every interaction.