On the Third Decade of My Professional Life

Today, June 15, 2026, begins the third decade of my professional life. I spent 2006-2016 in school earning a bachelor's degree and a doctorate. I spent 2016 to 2026 as a consultant working in e-commerce, with a brief intermission in-house after the agency I was working at was acquired. There is some fuzzy crossover at the edges of the decades, but I think the characterization is fair.

Today, I begin the third decade of my career as I chase down THE BIG DREAM. I'm almost ready to pull back the curtain on what I'm doing next and will when I'm ready to show rather than tell. It's more fun that way.

When I look back on the first two decades of my professional life, I feel incredibly grateful. The path I have taken has been my own and it's been filled with rich experiences. I don't intend to write an autobiography with this post so these will be the highlights.

My time at Liberty University was awesome. It was an amazing environment in which to become an adult without all the destructive influences that can come with post-secondary. I had a ton of fun, grew as a person, and learned. Undergrad for me was as much about growing up and learning who I was as it was about acquiring a set of skills. As a Canadian, the time I spent in Virginia, at a private Christian school gave me a window into a world that I'd otherwise only see through the media. America is a widely diverse place, but the stint I spent living there has given me a much better sense of what makes it tick. I like being able to see beyond Canada's stereotypes of that slice of America.

My time at Simon Fraser University was enlightening. Grad school is such a weird place. You bring together all of these super nerdy people who are super passionate about these very, very narrow slices of the world. The result is the advancement of human knowledge and all sorts of unexpected discoveries and friendships. Some people are coming in right after undergrad, like me. Others have had full careers already and are levelling up their credentials. The thing that unites us all is our pursuit of knowledge. There is much I can say about my grad school experiences and will one day when the time is right. For now, I will say that the thing I am most grateful for is the exposure to ideas and a space to explore them that I have not had anywhere else. I feel a little like I was given a cheat code in the areas of software, user experience, and understanding creativity. Hang on to this idea because it plays an important role in the third decade.

The second decade is when I started to build things for people. First, I built tools for other researchers and then I built stores for merchants. This decade was marked by becoming a "professional software developer." I have the privilege of working on brands that have played a significant role in culture like JUUL, Our Place, Olipop, and others. It was during this decade where I was able to get the reps as a programmer and eventual leader of programmers. At The Beyond Group, I built the dev team based on everything I had learned and experienced playing sports, reading leadership books, and advocating for myself on other teams.

And today begins the next decade, the decade of being a founder. In this decade, I'm chasing THE BIG DREAM. In grad school, I was exposed to a set of ideas that I've only seen little glimpses of since. I think these ideas are massively important as we begin the Age of AI. They provide answers to questions people are beginning to bump into now as they build tools with AI and for AI. I think these ideas are essential to us remaining human during this time when our humanity could be diminished by how we build our tools. The future is uncertain whether we will use the machines to cultivate an abundant earth for us and all living things or we will shape ourselves in appeasement of the needs of the machines. I think it could go either direction at this point.

In this third decade of my career, I will set out on what I suspect will become my life's work. I am excited, nervous, and can't wait to begin sharing some of the ideas and tools that I think will ensure we remain masters of our tools. There is great fun in the days ahead. I can't wait to empower and enhance your ability to create.