Status Report

What projects is Eric working on, and what is the status of each? Find out here. Will list in order of importance.

Packback #

Takes up about 75% of my time most days. Enjoying my time here, feeling more and more like a real software engineer every day. Being the only one working on the backend full-time, I get the chance to make a lot of architectural decisions - with much feedback of course. We’re hiring someone senior to help distribute the workload and also teach the rest of the team lots of new things, so check out working for Packback.

Illinois Institute of Technology #

Still in school, though part-time - taking two classes, both online. One’s a project management class tailored towards IT projects, and the other one is a web design/HCI class. Both are relatively easy, though now group projects are starting and that can be difficult to manage. Will be taking classes over the summer.

YSFlight Headquarters #

Helping out with administration as needed, as well as making tech updates. Recently released a new forum theme, and have a couple other ideas for ways to improve YSFHQ’s technology that will help increase player engagement. Of course, the projects I have in mind could span multiple weekends, so finding large blocks of time is the challenge.

Clarify #

I started this almost two years ago at a hackathon, and have been working on it on-and-off ever since (although very infrequently). Originally going to be my own EdTech startup, that has been put on hold as I wasn’t dedicated enough; instead it’s more of a project. The project’s current goal is to create the best course search experience. I don’t feel the pain of course selection until registration time comes around, hence why it’s been relatively low on the priority list most months.

Last fall I launched the course search tool Pop at IIT to help students choose their courses for the Spring 2016 semester. It got a large positive response and has had over 1,000 users. However the tool itself is quite primitive tech-wise, in the MVP stage. I plan to make some small improvements by 3/21 when the course schedule comes out for Fall 2016, and then work more heavily on it in the next couple weeks to allow modifications to be made much easily.

CrimeIsDown.com #

Making occasional updates as time permits, so far it’s been every three months. I want to do a lot more tech-wise with the project, specifically try out Angular 2.0 and make my code more modular, but so far I haven’t had time to take on large tasks like that. Generally will implement features that are suggested. Trying to figure out what the role of the website is among all the other Chicago crime-related sites and pages.

Blog #

I usually write something in one sitting (e.g. this brain dump), then minor editing afterwards. I’ve got a long list of topics in the backlog, but if I don’t get a strong urge to write I won’t do it. This is prompted by me wanting to get a quick update out to everyone on what I’m working on. At some point I’ll blog about each of the projects in more detail.

At any rate, thanks for reading! I’m a lot more active on Twitter, so follow me there.