About

John Vandivier is a Senior Software Engineer specializing in full-stack development and cloud engineering. With over a decade of experience in software development and data analysis, John brings a unique background, mission focus, and collaborative spirit to the projects he works on. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University and has a prior life in policy work in Washington. John is passionate about self-led learning and is always looking for new ways to expand his knowledge. He contributes to open research, helps non-technical career switchers break into tech, and helps techies accelerate career advancement. He has a particular interest in open-source and open research and is an avid maker and user. John's favorite unaccredited learning providers include AlgoExpert, Amazon, Codecademy, FreeCodeCamp, Google, Khan Academy, Ladderly, Mises Academy, and Pluralsight. He is also proficient in a wide range of tech stacks, including AWS, Javascript, Typescript, SQL, Java, DevOps, PHP, ECS, Docker, and Python. Currently, John is working as a Senior Software Engineer at Upstart, where he focuses on integrating financial services in Ruby and Python with AWS infrastructure. He has also worked as a Cloud Engineer at Amazon, where he led integration testing strategy with Java and JUnit and built AWS infrastructure using industry-standard Open Source tools like the AWS CDK in combination with Amazon-specific tools and processes. Prior to that, John worked as a Principal Developer at Blue Cross NC, where he focused on full-stack development in multiple languages, with an emphasis on JavaScript, React, and TypeScript. He also contributed to two iterations of full-stack development frameworks, emphasizing scalability, efficiency, consistency, and dev enablement. John's education profile is impressive, with a Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University, a Master's degree in Public Policy Analysis from George Mason University, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Political Science from the University of Houston. He also holds a Diploma from GHS.