Alden Jenkins | Designer, Developer & Deployer

Designer, Developer & Deployer

I design, build, and operate highly scalabe web services, and I love what I do.

Hi, I’m Alden. Nice to meet you.

Since beginning my journey as a programmer nearly 15 years ago, I've created and deployed fully fledged, professional web and phone applications. I have a hardwired desire to be better, an instinct for beautifully created apps, a strong ambition to make interactive experiences, and I'm able to use my knowledge and initiative to deliver high quality results.

Designer

While I spend a lot of time writing source code, I spend even more time designing test cases, creating extensive documentation, and orchestrating sprints.

Test Driven Development

Unit testing, Test-first Development

Dev Tools:

  • Neovim
  • Tmux / Tmuxinator
  • iPDB
  • PUDB
  • Pycharm debugger
  • ngrok
  • git/svn
  • Zsh
  • Terminal

Design Tools:

  • Photoshop
  • After Effects
  • Premier
  • Gimp
  • Sketch

Full-stack Developer

I tend to code things from scratch, and enjoy bringing ideas to life.

Languages I speak

Python, Javascript, C, C++, Java, SQL, PHP, Lua, SourcePawn, HTML, CSS, R

Frameworks

  • Django
  • DjangoREST
  • GeoDjango
  • DjangoNinja
  • FastAPI
  • Flast
  • Tornado
  • Celery
  • Jekyll
  • Hugo

This web application is deployed entirely for free and Serverless to Github Pages using Jekyll as a static site generator.

Deployer

Platform Engineering is one of my favorite aspects of application construction. Deploying services to whichever infrasructure fits their requirements best is one of the most fun things on earth.

Deployment Tools:
Now with 100% less Feature Toggles in Canary deployments.

  • Kubernetes
  • Istio
  • Envoy
  • Docker
  • Canary Deployments
  • Datadog / Dynatrace
  • Jenkins / CircleCI
  • RabbitMQ
  • Redis
  • AWS / GCP

My Workflow

See what I like in my development environment & mindset.

Environment

I try to use minimal programs and frameworks as much as possible to maximize privacy, increase performance, and avoid spyware in the programs I use everyday.

Setup:

  • Arch Linux
  • Custom-patched dwm Window Manager
  • Neomutt email client
  • Zathura for PDF Viewing
  • Pandoc for PDF Generation
  • Suckless Terminal

Check out my dotfiles repo here

Ergonomics

Many modern practices were not engineered around the human body. Why keep using old technology at the cost of your health?

Improvements:

  • Kinesis Advantage / Gergo keyboards
  • Colemak Keyboard Layout
  • Sit-stand Desk
  • Vim bindings for Chromium, Zsh

Simplicity

I try to remove bloat in not just code that I write by being as DRY as possible, but also in my workstation and development setup.

Practices:

  • Suckless Community Member
  • Free Software Enthusiast
  • Frugality

My Interests, Hobbies, & Lifestyle

Get to know me a little bit.

Artificial Intelligence

Proficient Practices:

  • Genetic / Natural Selection
  • Support Vector Machine
  • Conventional Neural Network
  • Convolutional Neural Network

Useful Tools:

  • Processing IDE for most visualizations
  • R Studio for Support Vector Machine implementation
  • Tensorflow for image analysis
  • Pandas for use with tensor flow

Who I Am

I am a kindhearted, creative, dedicated, happy leader who evokes a sense of joy and positivity wherever I go.

The mission and values of an organization mean everything to me.

Top 5 Gallup Strengths:

  • Achiever
  • Strategic
  • Learner
  • Individuation
  • Restorative

Top 5 VIA Strengths:

  • Honesty
  • Love
  • Humor
  • Spirituality
  • Creativity

Holistic Health

Developing a personal relationship with your body allows you to understand exactly how it works, and what it is and isn't compatible with.

Practices:

  • Eating Real Food
  • Meditation
  • Exercise
  • Tai Chi
  • QiGong
  • Cold Showers
  • Holotropic Breathing
  • Treating your body like you would an expensive car

Resources:

  • Paul Chek
  • Josh Trent
  • Rudolf Steiner
  • Ken Wilbur
  • Charles Eisenstein

My Startup Projects

I enjoy creating fun, interractable applications in my free time, and have learned far more from creating my own software than I learned during any of my classes.

My walkthroughs for most Machine Learning algorithms.

alden.ai

An online multi-gaming community with a multitude of custom modded servers.

thicc.io

An app that's more about what you're doing than what you're thinking.

Shutdown in 2018
See more on Github

Start a project

I’m Always open to Discussing Development opportunities.

Let's do this