Meet our newest student — Tom!

What were you doing prior to Array, Tom?

I worked as a Help Desk Technician at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, I ran my own computer repair/tech services business, and I dabbled in cryptocurrency trading and mining!

After learning about Array, what made you interested in attending?

I’ve wanted to learn programming, web programming, design, database storage and retrieval for a long, long time. I’ve probably had solutions bouncing around in my head for a good five years that I knew computers were capable of doing, but that I couldn’t really realize because I lacked any serious knowledge of programming.

Deciding to come to Array is a fairly life-changing decision. Tell us a little about what ultimately made you decide to attend.

It was hard, because I was secure in my job, even if I wasn’t raking in the dollars. It was scary, because of the near-guaranteed loss of security… and then it was easy, because for at least the past few months, a hunger had been growing in me for some more fulfilling and purposeful professional accomplishment, as well as just a general change in life. No disrespect to our Help Desk Techs on the front line, but I yearned for a challenge.

Are you joining us with any prior experience in computer programming or design?

I’ve made some pretty cool scripts for my business, inspired by reading tales of software developers who made themselves indispensable for their workplaces by crafting solutions that saved time and money. One of them installs a suite of mostly open-source applications that I’ve curated over my years repairing and configuring computers for end users, which saves me TONS of time.

What would you say you are most excited about?

That’s an incredibly difficult choice to make — but if I’m FORCED to pick, I’m pretty stoked about being able to create web forms that can send information to a database, and applications that can pull that data and display it on a report, or generate certificates and config files for use in my business with.

Let’s fast forward one-year. What do you hope you will be doing?

I mean, my IDEAL job would be, like, working with Canonical to help make desktop Linux more usable for average users, and more connected to popular web services without compromising open-source security.

Tell us a little more about yourself — hobbies or fun facts?

I adore outer space, I love SpaceX and wish their mission (to make humanity a multi-planet species) success — so that I can buy a one-way trip to Mars as one of humanity’s first colonists. At the very least, I’d love to go on a road trip to go watch a Falcon Heavy launch in person. I also enjoy camping in Wyoming’s wide open scenery, good craft beer, Rocket League, martial arts, target shooting and… hell, I’m here for a reason, working on computers in all sorts of ways.

How are you feeling prior to starting at Array?

Busy, actually! Lots to get done both before, and during my time at Array! I now have some time to build myself and my businesses, I’d be a fool to waste it!