My Story

Aaron has worked for ILM Professional Services for the past 11 years and has over 10 years of experience in software development. He received his Bachelor’s of Science at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. 

A Few Questions With Aaron

When did you first get started or interested in programming? 

I started with my interest in video games, modifying them and creating different levels. That was really the gateway for me getting into programming. Back in my Middle School or Jr. High School days, I’d play a video game called ZZT. It was a low-level graphics game, where everything was in squares. It was released in MS-DOS, and you could create your own levels in the game using a programming language called ZZT-oop, which was a primitive language.  

My twin brother had the same interest as I did, so we did a lot of the same things together. We would test things out on each other and share games online.  

What’s one project that you’ve worked on that you’re most proud of? 

That would be a project that I did at Ecolab. I worked on it alone, just myself and a business analyst from Ecolab. It involved a single API microservice, and it was solely my responsibility to get it figured out and solved. Thankfully, I was able to nail the solution, and it was a success. 

How do you stay up to date with the latest programming and industry news? 

I attend conferences, I read blogs and Reddit articles. I’m not really looking at topic specifics, but more like whatever catches my eye and interest. One person from Microsoft that I’ve followed for some time, and who now works for Facebook, is Eric Lippert though I haven’t seen him post much in a while. 

Do you have any difficulty in breaking away from work after your workday has completed? 

If I happen to be “in the zone” for a bit, and I know that with creatively it’s important to “strike while the iron is hot”, I get the work done right then and there. To answer the question, I generally find it pretty easy to leave work at work.  

When it comes to icebreakers, what’s your go-to approach? 

I’m a person that likes to wait and see what happens with a conversation. I don’t really have an icebreaker as a conversation starter.  

What kind of hobbies and interests do you have, outside of work? 

I still enjoy playing video games, either console or PC, and the format that I like playing are multi-player games. Lately I’ve been playing Final Fantasy-14 online. I also get involved with using discord servers, which is basically Slack for video gamers.  

I sometimes play games with friends that I’ve had for years, and other times I’ll play with the community that I’ve connected with on the discord servers, which can be people from all around the world.   

Tagline: “If you have 8 hours to cut down a tree, best to spend the first 6 hours sharpening your ax.”