Virile

Hello, my name is Eric. Friends call me Virile. I'm a self-taught web, mobile, and desktop applications engineer. I started teaching myself Javascript, HTML, and CSS in 2007 and have since had success at making a career from my efforts. 

In 2007 I was hired with the Neel Managment Team as a Tenant Advocacy Specialist and one of the tasks of the job was to sit in a computer lab for several hours a day, of which I had very little to do except help someone with a computer issue every now and again. I used this opportunity to take the div into the web development world. And have since found that I have a propensity toward code, data, and design and how they relate and create each other one after another into full featured applications. 

After a year or two NMT offered me a management position where I'd be spending my workweek in an office, and, wouldn't you know it, their website needed updated. Over the course of the 11 years working with Neel Managment I'd rewritten their front-facing website three times, created them a document management portal, and automated how they handled their vacancies by creating them a vacancy reporting system. This reporting system was written with PHP/HTML/CSS/JavaScript and it handled unit turn-over (time-based), vacancy loss reporting, and applicant tracking. This is where I first came upon C# and .Net (I had thought I might transition the system over to an IIS stack at some point and decided to start teaching myself, ended up coming in handy down the road). I was, during the course of all this, promoted to Compliance Specialist and moved to the central office where I continued a dual-position as web developer and working with State and Federal Compliance.

Viridian Management bought out The Neel Management Team in 2007 and I was asked to take the position of Compliance Manager but would no longer be working with any programming or web development. I accepted and moved across to the Eastern side of Oregon. After about a year it became fairly obvious, I was not happy at my new position. And so, in 2014, I moved back to Eugene, Oregon found a job with HSI.com as a tech support agent. At HSI when I interviewed they stuck me in a room with a computer for several hours alone and gave me a login to their learning platform. I used the time to hack the system (quite literally) and showed them I could cheat thier courses, that their password security was inadequate, and I could access other user's portals using just the dev-tools of the browser and some Javascript/HTML manipulation. I was still hired as a tech support agent, so I took it upon myself to develop a portal of my own from scratch, the end result of which ended up being very AngularJS-like (written in plain HTML/Javascript/CSS and PHP. I took this portal, which implemented an error reporting system, user and location management, and location and user/user assignment, and showed it to the Web Engineering lead, ending my presentation with, "I'm showing this to you because I want you to give me a job". Wouldn't you know it, they were about to transition their system and needed developers! 

This is where my prior self-studies in C#/.Net came in handy (mostly working with layouts and data-forwards to the front-end) while we transitioned over to an AngularJS front-end/SQL centered stack. I was tasked with UI/UX implementation hooking the back-end to the front-end as well as reusable module/component creation (E.G. image/document uploader (base64/blob focused IE10 compliant), file/folder list-view handling w/drag-drop organization, drag-drop component with data management made to be extensible for a variety of use-cases, etc.). I'd also worked in mobile application development building with Cordova making a couple of small apps for IOS and Android (Windows Phone too, but that never ended up in an app store). 

After HSI, in 2018, I decided to go into 'business' for myself as a freelance dev while also working to improve my skills in application development. I did a lot of small piece jobs and quite a bit of WordPress (::sadface::), but I was also given some small projects in AngularJS/CLI and was introduced to some React/React-Native under some contract work. My favorite by far was a freelance job I'd been given working as a sole developer on a Guitar/Chord-Chart related web/mobile application. This was my favorite because I was the entire team and got to create many new bells and whistles as well as obtaining a much deeper understanding of APIs, was quite fun. 

For a short period in there (11mo) I worked for Cascade doing patches and trouble tickets working in the Delphi environment for desktop and ported one of their modules (Time-Cards) into a React application so that users could log thier time online using any device (the application fit screens from 270px on up). 

And now, now I am here, 2022, looking for perhaps some more contract work, or if I find the right fit, a position with an established business who might make use of my skills, recognize my love for learning, and take into account that I like to keep busy. 

Thanks for reading, 

--|| Eric Shoberg
  ~ Virile
--|| Enthusiastic, 
--|| Self Manager