About me
Software Engineer in Seattle, Washington
Hi. I'm Rick Sheahan, a software engineer, math nerd, futurist, and hamster enthusiast.
I live in the beautiful Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. I went to school for Math + Computer Science (and a 2 year attempt at an East Asian Language & Culture double major) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. True kismet, as Champaign is my hometown and I always wanted to work with computers ever since I started to make games after school.
I have worked at as a TA for large lecture halls and labs, at a mid-stage Seattle enterprise integration platform startup, and as the full-stack dev maintainer for a internal hackathon web app at Microsoft.
I am often freelancing or taking contract work on the side, and right now I am doing just that as I search for my next great career opportunity. Please see below to contact me if you would like to get in touch about freelance or remote work or permanent engineering positions in the Puget Sound.
I write code - from JavaScript to Haskell and everything in between. Well, most things in between. That said, I'm not a just a coder. I'm a computer scientist. More than just writing code, I like to design systems and think in terms of (mostly) discrete math - especially graph theory, but also many other algorithms and design patterns i have come across in my time at a top 5 CS university and my own interest or work-driven research.
I usually daytime as a full-stack engineer, working with Node.js, frontend JS + HTML, database architecture and engineering, and API design and testing. I also rely on ReactJS frequently, although I have used Angular and many other popular frontend libraries. For the backend, I am well versed in express but have used Hapi.js and other popular server-side frameworks.
By night, I'm obsessed with programming languages and compilers, particularly the compiler front-end. I love functional languages, especially Haskell - and this is no coincidence, as I have a heavy math background. I also have experience with a great deal of libraries and frameworks - Python and its web frameworks as well as scientific computing libraries, Java (and Android development!), years of using C to rewrite malloc and other university torture, C++ and OpenGL for game development and shaders, Unity and C# - also for game development, Lua, Ruby and Rails, shell scripting, AppleScript, Prolog, Swift, and a number of other things that would make this a long, boring list. I also have a keen interest in effective onboarding practices, documentation practices, and awareness of mental health and how to deal with it within the tech industry.
Currently, I am developing an iOS app that will serve as a tool for students of graph theory - something I long wished I had during my education. I am incredibly excited about watchOS and HealthKit possibilities, as well as GPS-based apps and games, as well as ARKit.
I'm also doing my periodic refreshing of my Haskell skills - I don't have many opportunities to write it professionally, so I always have to stay sharp. I have a few fun ideas for novelty languages that I could write parsers for, which will hopefully end up on my GitHub.
Outside of my career and professional pursuits, and away from my love of my craft, I also do other human things! I love my partner, cooking, skating, all my aApple gear, hamsters, prairie dogs, podcasts, downloading too many apps, and Tacos Chukis - roughly in that order. My favorite way to spend an evening is getting takeout and donuts and chowing down on them with my girlfriend as we watch a goofy Korean variety show or Jane the Virgin.
Outside of work, you're most likely to catch me around Cal Anderson park, skateboarding with far more confidence than my skills should allow; or app / product hunting, hacking, scripting, reverse engineering, integrating and frustrating my roommate with my smart home / IoT / home automation obsession.
But feel free to get in touch about career opportunities and see me at work first-hand! 😋
