Intro

This page is meant to help others get to know me, what I work on, how I work, and how best to work with me. While these are just suggestions, it will help us both work together as best as we can.

Bio

I'm Doug Skinner, a Senior Backend Engineer @Parexel where I own the backend applications and infrastructure for their NLP platform. This is a combination of work all over the stack, and I am interested in touching most things that aren't the frontend. Nothing against frontend development, it just isn't my cup of tea right now.

Before joining Parexel, I was battle tested as a lead engineer running two teams of 6 engineers @CommerceHub. I was responsible for all software design decisions as well as all aspects of managing a remote team of engineers for both of these teams.

Flaws

I believe that openness and honesty are the best way to create an enjoyable and productive working environment, and in that spirit want to share a list of things that I don't do well and am working on. If you see these behaviors, I apologize but please feel free to call me out on them.

1. I tend to look really serious, all the time. It can be assumed that I am not as unhappy as my face tends to look.
2. I tend to focus on the critical feedback and will mostly talk about what can be improved in certain situations. This does not mean that good things are not happening, and please always feel comfortable asking what they are.

Strengths

1. I have strong opinions, weakly held
2. I am always open to learning new things or software
3. I have a hard time giving up on certain problems
4. I believe I can effectively balance between business speak and dev speak

Communication

To contact me about anything, please prefer the most asynchronous way possible. If you are a friend, send me a text. If you are someone looking to work on a project that doesn't work at my day job, please email me, and if you do work with me please send me a message or tag me on a pull request.

I am a great believer in the powers of async communication, and strive to follow it wherever I can.