Hi, I'm Benji, and I make technical trainings that developers love.

Since 2018, I’ve led the Engineering Learning & Development program at Slack. I’ve created a best-in-class engineering onboarding program, which I’ve delivered to hundreds of new hires, with a hundred engineers as peer educators.

Before pivoting into engineering education, I spent twenty years as a software developer. I built software on platforms from phones to tablets to room-size VR, in domains from K-12 education to bat flight fluid dynamics, and languages from C++ to JavaScript. Through those years, I learned and taught many, many specialized skillsets.

Psychological safety, individualized learning experiences, and open-handed peer support are the keys to scalable technical learning; I’ve been watching those patterns succeed ever since I was an undergraduate teaching assistant at Brown University in the 90s. Now I want to help the next generation of software engineers be kind, inclusive, and collaborative. I have specific ways that we can build this culture, and I want to share them with you.

I'm open to hearing about new opportunities. Please get in touch.

Skills 

  • Technical training creation.

  • Classroom & zoom session facilitation

  • Object-oriented design, test-driven development, software architecture. 

  • Mentoring.

  • Team culture development. 

Experience

Slack Technologies, San Francisco and Remote, Technical program manager

2018 - present

I lead onboarding and learning for Engineering at Slack. Onboarded hundreds of engineers every year, in class sizes up to 70 people, with a 12-session program that gets rated as “extremely satisfied” by more than half of the participants. Rolled out a new learning management system and supported subject matter experts to deliver dozens of live trainings, videos, and self-paced trainings. Coordinated more than a hundred volunteers at a time, with 9% of the engineering org participating in engineering onboarding or learning.

AltSchool, San Francisco, STAFF Software Engineer

February 2015 - November 2017

Architected, designed, and built web and mobile tools for educators to document, analyze, and share student work. Redesigned software planning and review process. Mentored junior engineers and led small teams. Helped kindergarteners use power tools.

Twitter, SAN FRANCISCO, Software Engineer

2010 - 2015

Built campaign management user interface on ads.twitter.com using Ruby on Rails, Backbone, and Scala. Re-wrote workflow tools for developer experience, IPO compliance and cloud transition.

YAHOO!, SunnYVALE, California, SENIOR Software Engineer

May 2009 - October 2010

Extended Hudson (now known as Jenkins) to meet the needs of Yahoo’s continuous integration requirements.

Laszlo Systems, Senior Software Developer

2005 -  2007

Implemented CSS support in Open Laszlo. Implemented a rich text editor in Flash. Created a JavaScript xUnit framework and benchmark toolkit.

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, Research Programmer

2002 - 2005

Designed and led implementation 2D and 3D projects with C++, OpenGL, and Java. Managed ChemPad, a sketching application for understanding 3D molecules, from initial idea through roll-out to students in Brown’s introductory organic chemistry course.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER, QUOKKA SPORTS SAN FRANCISCO

2000-2001

Built UI and processing tools for NBCOlympics.com using Java and C. Developed authoring tools for journalists in extreme environments.

CREATIVE ENGINEER, CONSTRUCT INTERNET DESIGN, SAN FRANCISCO

1997 - 2000

Developed multi-user games, web sites, and technology demonstrations for clients including Sony, Intel, and Netscape.

 

Education

Brown university, providence

B.A. COMPUTER SCIENCE WITH HONORS, 1997