South Africa
I’m James. I like boardgames, sunsets, and long walks on the beach … chasing after my two escapist dachshunds.
I’ve taken a meandering route to get where I am today. I studied theoretical computer science as my undergraduate degree at the University of Natal, South Africa, with German and psychology as additional majors. My parents, while sceptical of this combination, had great hopes I would makes my millions by providing therapy to German AIs, and thus support them in the lifestyle to which they wished to become accustomed upon retirement. 20-something years later, and their dreams may soon be coming true. Eye on the prize, wanting to make my parents proud, I followed my studies immediately with a year long trip to Taiwan to teach English. When I returned to South Africa at the end of my contract, I met the proverbial girl (who would later propose to me with the romantic words “James, I’m never *****ng travelling to Europe with you again until you marry me”), and started working in a small software development shop. Some years later, I got introduced to bioinformatics (via my wife, who was studying biochemistry at the time). There was funding for me to do an M.Sc, but we would have to move to Stellenbosch; One of the finest Universities in South Africa, and far more importantly in the heart of winelands. This very hard decision made, we moved down. I learnt an incredible amount while there, although my parents curiously decided to reevaluate their retirement finances at this time. Leaving Stellenbosch with a deep understanding and appreciation of fine wine … oh, and a Masters in biochemistry (cum laude), I proceeded to work in a series of startups in and around the field of bioinformatics. Eventually, I grew weary of perpetual semi-studenthood, i.e. I got tired of being broke, and returned to my roots when I got a job offer from Amazon. I’ve spent three years working on the guts of EC2, and from there I joined WPEngine, thus coming finally into the world of WordPress.
In my spare time I like to play boardgames, design boardgames, make modern art sculptures out of wood (actually I’m trying to make things like tables and chairs, but modern art is usually a better description of the results), cook, walk my dogs though pretty parts of the world, retrieve my dogs from various holes, ditches, mud pits, and areas designated “no dogs allowed” (for supposedly not being able to read, they nail this one with surprising consistency).