Todd Garrison

Get to know Todd Garrison

What are you looking for in your next role?

I would love to go to a company that has a more established engineering team that is able to support and foster my continued growth and learning. It is important to me that I do not lose my skills and I am challenged every day to learn something new and share it with the wider team.

Why did you decide to change career and/or educational paths? What was your prior path and how did you end up down that road initially?

I have been working in teaching/customer facing roles for over ten years. My recent career in customer success had many ups and downs but the part I appreciated and found most rewarding was when I was able to work on a larger project for my customers. I was most satisfied and felt I made the most positive impact for my customers when I was able to work with the customer, map out their needs, spend heads down time planning and executing their project, and finally presenting the final product to them. I realized that I was spending more time firefighting customer complaints than actually working on resolving greater overarching issues for my customer base. Once that dawned on me I decided I wanted to shift more to the backend of product and help create something that would make the greatest impact for my customers. Hence why I have made the jump to being a web developer/full stack engineer.

Where have you been involved in the tech community (events attended, volunteer activities, etc.)?

I have participated in a few hackathons while at edX. I would like to get more involved in Code for Boston and other coding meetups to continue to work on my coding skills and network with those in the Boston area.

What has been the most fulfilling aspect of your journey towards becoming a web developer? What's been your biggest challenge and how have you overcome it?

I find it extremely rewarding when I am working through a project and finally solve an issue that I have been working through. The feeling of accomplishment and success from hitting that eureka moment and seeing the project come to fruition is very fulfilling for me. My biggest challenge has been learning when to ask for help. I have a tendency to lose track of time when I am stuck on a problem and try to solve it on my own. What I need to work on is my time boxing and setting a time limit for me to try and solve the problem. If I have not made any progress after the time allotment is up - I should reach out to someone who knows more for guidance.

If you had an unlimited budget and resources, what would you build?

A brewery, distillery, sandwich/coffee shop, with a dog park... Alternatively I would love to create a travel app that can integrate into a budgeting section so as you plan out your trips you can get a better understanding of how much money you need to bring/budget for the trip. You can enter in your max budget and then as you add on flights, hotels, and activities that is subtracted from the budget you have set. You can add restaurants that you'd like to dine at as well, and the average cost of a meal would be deducted from the budget as well. Basically a one stop shop for all your needs when preparing for a trip.