Backend 90%
Frontend 90%
Photoshop 90%
Graphic Design 70%
Video Production 60%
Fashion Sense 100%
My name is Robert Gutierrez and I am a creative, collaborative software engineer with strong user empathy. I have over six years of professional experience building web applications and tools to empower colleagues and customers to do their best work.
I started my first programming projects in 7th grade, when I was introduced to web development and video game development. Back then, my knowledge was limited to HTML/CSS and a game engine called GameMaker. I honed my skills throughout high school and was able to get a small intern position at the Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM), helping design flyers and other conference materials, as well as helping to maintain some Wordpress sites. My next position was as a web developer at my university, California State University, Chico. There, I learned a lot about PHP, Javascript and SQL databases. My coursework at the university dealt mostly with video game production as well as courses on production in film and web sites.
For a long time, video games were my passion. As a college student, I helped program several games, for myself and others, for class projects. I participated in Chico State Game Studios, an organization based around the students enrolled in the "APCG 495" course. There were around 40 students participating at a time. The course was ran like a real studio: we broke into teams like concept art, level design, etc., we had team leads, we used an SVN repository for all our code. I also learned what "crunch" was. I spent many late nights in the computer lab making sure we hit our deadlines.
After graduating college, I was hired by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. I was hired as a Web Developer and worked on several applications and projects, and was promoted to Lead Web Developer in my fifth year. In my opinion, I have learned more here than I have in all my other positions combined. I've had the pleasure of working with a great team and great mentors who have pushed me and challenged me to do my best work. I am proud of the work I've done here, and over these few years I've had time to develop some new passions: creative writing, mixology, and coffee. I've written a first draft of a novel along with a couple short stories. I've developed several cocktail recipes and have created a small menu to use at an upcoming pop-up. I bought myself an espresso machine and grinder and am currently trying to master latte art.