What I like most is being close to the problem: hearing it from the person who has it, working out what they actually need, building the fix, and checking whether it worked.
I've been building since 2019, when I started making games in Unity (seven published so far). These days it's mostly web products. In 2023 I started StuImpact, a student nonprofit focused on opportunity, mentorship, and access to education. When the nonprofits we work with needed somewhere to run their courses and couldn't pay for the commercial options, I built OpenPath for them. It hosts 20+ organizations now.
The internships are where I figured out what kind of work I want. Cledge in 2023 and Kollegio AI in 2024 were both startups building for students applying to college. At Cledge I built admissions and financial-aid tools across three connected platforms. At Kollegio I built the authentication flow for a product with 300,000+ students on it. When something broke, it was mine to figure out. I liked having that much autonomy, and I liked being the person responsible for the result. That's why I look at startups first.
The projects I'm proudest of all started with working out what someone needed before I wrote any code. Blueberries began because UW students were giving up on reimbursements they were owed. Fixing it meant leading a five-person team and working on a $62K Student Technology Fee proposal as much as writing Python. UW FUEL runs on the real UW dining menus with real prices, and 100+ students picked it up in its first three weeks. I want more of that mix of building, talking to users, and making the case for an idea, which is why forward deployed and product roles appeal to me as much as straight engineering.
Right now I'm studying Informatics at UW (software development and HCI). I'm looking for internships where I can build and stay close to the people I'm building for, ideally on a small team at a startup. If that sounds like your team, email me.