stephen koch

software engineer

About

Let’s grab a beer sometime, we can go into details.

I’ve been a “developer” since around 1997 and got my start whilst working as an English teacher in Paris. I discovered MacroMedia Flash, and when ActionScript was first released I was instantly hooked.

I went on to excel with Flash and ActionScript and once Apple introduced the iPhone I jumped into Objective-C with the same vigor as I did with ActionScript. I was content in this new world however ultimately was more interested in the web and what was going on with all things “front end”.

And that's where I’ve been ever since. I’m keenly interested in how design and engineering intersects. User interactions can make (or break) a site or app and working with design / UX is where my brain seeks to be.

In short, I consider myself a “full-stack” engineer and React is where I feel most comfortable.

Places I've worked

From ~2002:

Postlight(4);
Blenderbox(1);
Token(1);
Hard Candy Shell(4);
Big Spaceship(7);
Learning Worlds(4);

I've also freelanced here and there mostly doing sites that have a CMS component although I have taken on some React Native because why not learn something new!

Technologies

Front end, back end, CMS, scripting, tooling, mobile, native, this is in no way an exhaustive list.

In a particular order.

S3
AWS
EC2
IAM
Lit
git
MDX
npm
php
JSX
CSS3
Twig
SASS
Node
yarn
Mongo
MySQL
Nginx
React
Redux
Docker
Drupal
Gatsby
Lambda
Sanity
Vercel
Emotion
Express
GraphQL
MongoDB
Netlify
Next.js
Prismic
Rush.js
WebPack
git-flow
Firebase
Markdown
Route 53
Tailwind
Craft CMS
Lightsail
Wordpress
Cloudwatch
CommonMark
Contentful
Javascript
TypeScript
API Gateway
CSS Modules
Objective-C
React Native
Elasticsearch
# ActionScript
Web Components
Styled Components

Other

I live in New Jersey. I have 2 daughters, Betty and Frankie. I’m married to the wonderful Nikki to whom I owe much. I have a cat named Magnus. I like to garden (nothing beats a good Jersey tomato), camp, bang on the drums, even strum the guitar from time to time.

magnus

I also like to play games, both video and board. I finished The Last Of Us about a year ago and I’ve gotta say, it was probably the best video game I’ve ever played!

Since the show came out, I had a renewed interest so have picked that back up and played through the first version and have just started the second. Blasting through using cheats is such fun.

Of course, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is now in rotation however it hasn’t grabbed me like others. BoTW was the best game I’d ever played (until LoU – hard to say which is better, to be honest) and I had high hopes for ToTK. I think I just don’t have the bandwidth needed to devote to it!

Our board game of choice at the moment is Sequence and we’ve also brought Yahtzee into the mix.

I enjoy puzzles as well as building with Legos. The kids and I completed Diagon Ally (and to be fair, they took over at book 3 and ran with it) and the Space Shuttle has a nice home.

SocialOf course