taurenk

For the past few months I have been trying to find a new job and I can’t seem to find the right position one way or another. I have gotten pretty far in the hiring process with some large well known companies, the trend seems to be “we really really like you, we just don’t think your ready” type of deal.

Currently, I work for a healthcare company doing a little of everything in IT/IS. I administer systems, do analytics on large sets of claim, member and provider data, ETL work, SQL development, new system implementation, and now long term IT strategy. I even do a ton of python scripting/dev for analytics and large projects.

On top of working 40+ hours I started to teach myself some new things. I picked up Python/Flask/PostgreSQL about 8 months ago and built out a Geocoding service using Census data. After interviewing for some Java engineer positions and not making the cut, I started to rewrite the geocoding REST service in Java/Spring/Hibernate. I even started to pick up Angular so I could make a decent UI in order to show off my work.

I really would love to become a software engineer – I love solving problems, creating, designing, etc. Trying to switch from what I do now to that type of role has been extremely frustrating. Recruiters seem to think it’s impossible for me to switch and I haven’t gotten much hits for anything close to what I want to be doing.

I’m hoping someone could offer some advice on what to do! I’ve attached a link to my resume and github – maybe I am not marketing myself properly?

https://github.com/taurenk https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/77316816/resume.doc

For the past few months I have been developing this Geocoding engine. It started out as a small Python module to parse out and cleanse address data. The project eventually grew from an address parser to a geocoder.

Currently, the geocoder supports only single addresses[aka no intersections]. There is a lot of work to do so please feel free to help out! Here is the link to the git hub: https://github.com/taurenk/PinPointGeocoder

I threw together a very crude demo [I mean VERY crude], which only works for New York addresses: www.pinpointgeocoder.com

This is my first time releasing any code, so please email me if you have any suggestions/tip/advice at tauren.kristich@gmail.com

I have developed a service that is REST based, which makes calls to a separate database server. Both of these are currently hosted on digital ocean, as separate servers - probably not best practice.

I would like to create a simple website that can show off what I have just created (eventually users will be able to make calls directly or use the site to access data). From what I understand, It seems it would be best practice to put the RESTful engine and the Database behind a VPN - where a user could send calls to the engine and get some results back. I am not sure whether i should put the app server behind the VPN as well.

Does anyone have any advice on how to set this up/best practices - or if this is even the proper way to do this? I am lagging a bit behind in my web tech skills, so please bare with me if any of this sounds strange. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I started a project on the side and would like to release it to the world for use - charging users a tiny fee to use the service.

My question is - do I now need to file for a business name, Corporation vs LLC, or any legal things? This is my first time releasing a service/product and have no idea where to start, can any one assist me?

I am working on a project, where my code/db reside on a local VM (Ubuntu server) sitting on my windows machine. My workflow is the currently: 1. Write code on desktop 2. Push changes to GIT 3. Go to VM and pull git changes 4. Test code on VM

I understand there are tools to improve this workflow (Vagrant+Puppet), but I am curious to hear what other dev environments/workflows look like or work for others.