Available for Hire
Let me Help you Succeed
I’m currently available for hire on either a short-term contract (up to 10 weeks) or as an expert consultant to guide your business on the right track.
In particular I’m looking for JavaScript work. I have extensive experience in writing node.js libraries and have been working with node.js as long as about anyone in the world. I was a member of the original node Illuminati (before there was a node core team) along with Isaac, Mikeal, Ryan and others.
Recently I’ve been working full-time re-implementing git in JavaScript as part of my mission to make programming more approachable to newcomers.
I honed my skills in writing async code inside complex code-bases and gained a unique perspective on writing cross-platform JavaScript apps. If you are thinking about writing a chrome app, I have developed an amazing workflow that makes this very natural and efficient. This new workflow also works equally well for single-page apps that even include build steps and appcache for offline capabilities.
I have some experience with JS frameworks and once worked on backbone as my day job at Document Cloud long before the world knew what backbone was. I do not consider myself expert in things like angular or ember (or even backbone) since I write most my apps in vanilla JavaScript with minimal framework. I have developed several such frameworks in the past and know how they work.
Zef Hemel, who worked with me at my last full-time position at Cloud9 IDE explained my style of work better than I could:
When I think about Tim, I think “radical simplification”. Tim was hired at Cloud9 as a node.js community manager, but grew to be the guy that built many of Cloud9 core foundation components such as Architect, Smith and VFS.
Tim is the type of developer that you hire and then hope rubs off on other developers in the company, adopting his way of thinking and his way of approaching a problem.
If Tim doesn’t like your code base, because it’s cluttered and difficult to understand — you’re doing it wrong. Tim can come up with almost magically simple solutions to complex problems that then turn out to be reusable in many unexpected places. When I look through the code of his libraries, I think: “ok, so where is the REAL code” — it’s just not there, it’s just very small and concise, and yet — it just works.
Tim is the type of developer that you want to be a thought leader in your company. You want him to go around and put his mark on every aspect of the software. This will likely result in throwing thousands of lines of code away, but the good news is those can then be replaced by only a few.
Tim is the only person I know that has this skill, and I admire him a lot for it.
I also love teaching programming and helping others understand technical problems. In the early days of node.js, I spent multiple hours a day helping newcomers get started. To save myself time, I started the community owned howtonode.org site which still gets over 2000 visitors a day.
A past coworker, Christoph Dorn said:
Tim is what I would consider to be a star developer. His deep understanding of and ability to communicate technical concepts and details are second to none. Not only can he get things done but also be a leader in the community at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Tim and would not hesitate to join forces again. Thanks for a great time.
I've thought long and hard about how to fulfill my responsibilities to my family while providing the maximum benefit to the world of software. I’ve considered founding a VC backed startup. I’ve considered full-time employment at any of the startups out there that could use my skills. I’ve considered giving my Tedit project a commercial license and selling it. But in the end, I realized that I feel most comfortable giving away my creative works for free wherever possible so that the most people can benefit from them. I don’t mind doing consulting or contract for a reasonable rate since it allows me free time to continue creating and giving away my passion projects. Also I gain valuable insight when working in a variety of real-world problems that enables me to create even better libraries and tools.
I need your help finding good work. I’m sure there are some amazing projects out there looking for someone with my skills, but I simply don’t have visibility to see them all. It’s especially hard when living in rural Texas and not being able to attend all the meetups I loved when I was in Dallas and San Francisco.
If you believe that I should continue to create new open source and/or that my skills are valuable to your company (or someone’s you know), please drop me a line.
Thank you for all the support.
P.S. I also accept donations via bitcoin.
