Dan Spykstra

Intrests

Tech

I've always loved anything techy. From a shiny new PC to the smallest gadgets. I'm currently converting my home from a dumb home to a slightly smarter one. As scheduling and finances allow I'm hoping to have my home fully voice or mobile device responsive using Alexa paired with IFTTT for a more customized experience.

In the last few months, I've also taken a deep dive into the VR experience. I would love to build a VR-capable PC one day to be able to achieve true VR greatness. Maybe after I land this WebDev job.

Music

I come from a musical family. One of my regrets in life is not sticking to learning an instrument. Though to quote a dad joke passed down to me from my dad, "I can play the radio pretty well". I love all forms of music from folk to metal or rap to classical and anything in between.

Building

There is nothing better than a good project. Obviously in a programming sense, but things like house projects, woodworking, or any other craft. Analyzing and figuring things out is how my brain processes information. So for me, understanding how something works and reverse engineering them into a finished and usable product is extremely gratifying.

Resume

Backstory

If you've made it this far you know my name. I'm Dan. I'm 28 years old, I'm a father of two beautiful children and a husband to the most amazing woman I've ever met. Growing up, I was always fascinated by tech. I dreamt of one day becoming a developer. In high school, I decided to take an HTML class that was only a couple of weeks long. By the end of the class, I decided I wanted to pursue learning more about the development world. However, after a couple of days of googling web development, I thought I was never going to be mentally inept enough to ever grasp it.

Just like that, I let my dream go as fast as it came. I then focused on football and just getting through high school hoping for a decent scholarship. I gave it everything I had. Unfortunately, the scholarship I was working towards never came. I got small offers from expensive private colleges that I knew I could never afford. Even with small scholarships I would have student debt that seemed would follow me forever, and I knew that's not what I wanted. So then I did what most small-town guys do when they have no real plans for the future. I joined the military. I signed on the dotted line on Sep 11, 2014, and shipped off for basic training. Without getting into the nitty-gritty, I went from wanting to become a career soldier to wanting nothing more than to get out and start a family. So I went the National Guard route.

When I came home I started off doing little jobs here and there, nothing exciting. Living the typical young single guy life. Then I ended up meeting the woman that I now get to call my wife and the mother of my two perfect kids. After we got married I finally found a decent-paying Job as a delivery driver at UPS. The pay was good, I had great benefits and I was convinced that was my new career. The job was great, but I still felt like something was missing. Like I wasn't living up to my full potential. But I told myself as a non-college-educated guy, good-paying jobs are few and far between. So I continued to grind it out. I remember after my daughter was born, all I wanted was to be there for her. I wanted to be a good dad and husband. I needed to provide for my family no matter the cost. Even if that meant only getting to see my family for one or two hours a day because of my commute and long work hours. The longer time went on the more I realized, providing for my family is more than just financial. It's emotional. It's physically being there for my family. I was between a rock and a hard place. I knew we needed to make a change, but how? Money is not everything but it's certainly more than nothing. During this time my brother-in-law and one of my best friends had been suggesting that I try out web development. He is a web developer and kept telling me to at least sign up for a couple of classes to see if I liked them. Little did he know I've wanted to be in the development field for a long time, I just didn't believe I could do it.

So instead of taking his advice I just kept grinding my life away, constantly at odds with myself. Knowing that I needed to do something different but was too scared to try. After talking to my wife about wanting to change We decided we were going to completely take charge of our lives and change our circumstances. We decided to sell our house and move across the country to help with the cost of living. It's been almost two years since we moved when I decided to pull the trigger on becoming a dev. I love everything about development. Having the ability to see a need and fill it with an app is an amazing feeling. Just building in itself is so fulfilling. Now I'm learning every day and making up for the lost time. My goal is to further my learning, land a job as a full-stack dev then never stop learning so I can excel and become the best programmer I have the potential to be.

They say if you enjoy your work you'll never work a day in your life. So here's to working hard and never working again!