MyFab5

1What I Owned

As co-founder and lead engineer, I had end-to-end ownership of everything technical—from the initial idea through MVP and beyond.

• End-to-end product development — Took ideas from napkin sketches to production systems, iterating based on real user behavior
• Backend architecture, APIs, and database design — Built the data layer that powered content management, user engagement, and analytics
• Frontend experiences and user flows — Designed and implemented the interfaces that served millions of readers
• Infrastructure decisions and deployment strategy — Made the calls on hosting, scaling, and operational reliability

2What This Proves

Building a company from scratch teaches lessons you can't learn any other way:

• Designing systems before requirements are clear — When you're building something new, you don't have the luxury of perfect specs. I learned to make architectural decisions with incomplete information and design for flexibility.
• Iterating based on user feedback, not theory — Real users taught me more than any product framework. I learned to ship fast, measure what mattered, and change course quickly.
• Understanding tradeoffs between "doing it right" and "doing it now" — Sometimes you need to ship imperfect code. Sometimes you need to stop and refactor. Knowing which is which is a skill you only develop by living with the consequences.

3The Technical Stack

Building a media platform at scale meant solving real problems with real constraints:

• CMS applications — Custom content management systems built for editorial workflows across 35 local publications
• Marketing automation tools — Systems for email campaigns, social media scheduling, and audience engagement
• Data processing pipelines — Analytics and reporting infrastructure to understand what content resonated and why
• Scaling for growth — Architecture that handled traffic spikes, viral content, and the demands of a growing audience

4The Consulting Signal

What sets this experience apart from typical engineering roles:

When I recommend an architecture, I know what happens six months later when requirements change. When I suggest shipping faster, I understand the technical debt you're taking on. When I push back on scope, it's because I've seen projects fail from overreach.