About
Passion Meets Drive
I couldn't be more grateful for the life I have and the people in it. Understanding certain parts of that are circumstance and luck, the aspects I can control are relentlessly pursued in search of perspective, wisdom, and opportunities to share that positivity with those around me.
I promise I will not link a yoga video next or write a poem. In a more pragmatic way, I'll try to describe myself. I'm Andrew Barrows. An ex-military, vocationally school trained web designer, turned front-end developer, turned full stack software engineer turned manager. I have an insatiable appetite for learning and growing both professional and personally and am assiduously loyal to those around me by practicing servantry leadership. I have a beautiful and hilarious wife as well as two amazing boys. If I'm half as lucky as I was growing up, I'll impart the wisdom, work ethic and values that my parents gifted me.
Proficiencies
CORE FRONT-END WEB FUNDAMENTALS.
Remembering back to 2007 when I was at Centriq Training, they first focused on web fundamentals and taught us the main languages that I still use everyday. Even after spending over a decade pursuing mastery in these languages and core concepts, I learn new things within each of them on a regular basis.
Skillsets
SPECIALIZATIONS AND EXPERTISE.
When you add optimism, drive, and natural curiosity existing skills are honed and new skills are uncovered Forged from countless lessons learned on past projects, keeping a keen eye on the fastest moving industry in the world, and always I didn’t have the previous year but I have noticed a pattern. I have steadily moved down the stack. Just like stepping through breakpoints, I always want to understand how the mechanism works. How can it be manipulated and more importantly how can it be improved.
01. USER EXPERIENCE.
02. DATA SCIENCE AND ANALYTICS..
03. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
04. WEB DESIGN.
05. DIGITAL MARKETING.
06. PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING.
07. SEO.
08. ONLINE COMPLIANCE.
09. AUTOMATED TESTING AND QA.
10. FRONT-END WEB DEVELOPMENT.
11. BACK-END WEB DEVELOPMENT.
12. SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE.
13. DEVELOPMENT OPERATIONS.
14. CMS SYSTEMS.
Tools
BECAUSE EVERY PROBLEM ISN'T A NAIL.
Like any trade skill, there's the fundamentals, specializations, and last but not least the tools you use to apply those when completing a project. I've used many many tools and have grow a fondness for some. Tooling and utilities have become one of my latest affinities since things like dotfiles can exponentially increase an engineering teams’ scope and efficiency. Below is a list of tools that I prefer both at work and on personal projects.
Articles
Sharing my lessons learned.
As I have progressed and changed throughout my career, I’ve had many achievements, discovered tactics, and developed strategies which have helped me and those around me. Many of these came from countless hours of experimenting and research. Others came from endless failures and mistakes I’ve made. One of my core leadership matras is building a team culture where “Growth from Mistakes” is embraced. These articles celebrate many of those and outline standards and opinionated best practices within the industry.
Contact
LET'S GET IN TOUCH.
Being that I am still working full-time for Andrews McMeel Universal and have a family, I am currently not taking on new clients for freelance work. I'm always open to interesting opportunities or ideas. If you have a question or would like to reach out, feel free to submit your message below!