I'm Steven Skoczen.

Welcome to my CV.

Skills

Best ever
Awesome
Solid
Novice
8
Leadership
9
Mentorship
8
Processes
8
AI
7
UX
6
UI
4
Design
8
Front-end
8
Back-end
6
Devops & Automation
3
DBA
3
Server Admin
7
Project Management
8
Architecture

I lead teams, write code, and help companies and teams grow into stronger, more resilient versions of themselves. My passion is taking small startups and helping them get to the next level — a bigger team, better processes, and automation to make the painful, boring parts go away. I love tools that make everyone better, and building cultures where team members bring their whole selves to work and love what they do.

I've recently moved to New Zealand, love what's happening here, and can't wait to pitch in and contribute.

Experience

I've been lucky to found, work at, and work with some amazing companies. Most recently, that's:

BuddyUp
Co-Founder, CTO
Grew the team to six, architected and coded an iOS, Android, and web app built in ionic. Created a platform that handled super-spikey demand at scale with real-time, large chat rooms, and all the stuff you'd expect with a good mobile app. More than the technical achievements, I'm most proud of the healthy, whole-person remote culture we were able to create together.
Ink and Feet
Founder
Ink and Feet was a radical reinvention of my career in which I worked primarily a writer and coach, and secondarily as an app developer. I've been fortunate to coach some amazing, world-changing people, and make a few courses and a book with genuine value and impact. I've also been lucky to work as a digital nomad, living across the planet and experiencing a vast array of cultures and beliefs, and languages.
GreenKahuna
Senior Engineer, Dev Team Lead
Took a team of fresh, talented developers and made app-making warriors. Built an open dev culture, with monthly kick-backs to iterate how we worked. Architected, led code reviews, and moved us from minimal testing to continuous deployment on E2E tests. Wrote and open-sourced will, our chat bot that handled devops, workflow, and fun.
Building Energy
Senior Engineer
Designed a decoupled pub-sub application architecture, and built it in a few weeks. Built the deploy system, a generalized data importer, Yeti, an amazingly helpful and friendly bot, and Flint, a dev-facing command-line tool. Drove culture from no tests to functional coverage and unit tests on all new code.
Wieden+Kennedy
Creative Technical Lead
Pushed creative digital thinking on the Coke, Laika, and Nike Golf accounts. Worked on a P&G global campaign, helped conceptualize and code the ParaNorman campaign, and watched my work in that year's Super Bowl. Started a monthly Tech Breakfast series to keep creatives current with the latest tech trends.
GoodCloud
Co-Founder, CEO
Built a full-featured CRM, donor and volunteer management platform for small nonprofits in four months, with one hand tied behind my back at a day job. Open-sourced a number of libraries from the codebase. Made some small nonprofits very happy.

I've also led medical research, founded a handful of companies, written a book, and given a TEDx talk. Weirdly, my degree is in Environmental Engineering from Cornell. Another lifetime ago, I wrote the International Ethobotany Database, after two summers in Perú interviewing shamans. It's been an interesting ride.

Code

I've created over a dozen open-source libraries, including some fairly popular ones. Here are some favorites, and my github:

Will
git.io/vynMM
Polytester
git.io/vylhO
Django-seo-js
git.io/vylhY
My Github
github.com/skoczen
Salad
github.com/salad
GoodCloud
github.com/goodcloud

Visa and Citizenship

I'm a United States citizen. Here in New Zealand, I'm working with Malcolm Pacific, and applying for a New Zealand permanent residency visa under the skilled migrant program.

With an offer letter, I am well over the points for the visa, and everything else is lined up. From the time an offer letter would be presented, I anticipate being ready to start work within 30 days.