Abigail Suarez

Heya! I'm Abby.

I've been working in software engineering for about 10 years now, I'm entirely self-taught and I've had some amazing mentors. I started by learning programming and server management in the down time while working callcenter IT, moved to working in Ad-Tech and several more small startups after that. Eventually ended up working for ViaSat and WalMart Labs where I learned that I prefer to work in smaller teams that have a strong vision of what they want to accomplish. And finally I got the opportunity to work my dream job making games working on an MMO of all things!

I've worked in several places in San Diego, initially in Frontend Developments roles, though my title didn't stop me from crossing over into Backend and DevOps work, learning it all along the way. I often worked in product adjacent roles as well, especially at small startups, where I would take the role of or assist in product owner work to make sure to guide and focus the team I have architected entire services and I feel fairly comfortable working in any part from build piplines and design frameworks to microservices and docket deployment workflows. I tend to hop around on teams helping where ever it's needed.

I'm a fan of JS and Typescript, mostly because I learned them first lol. I am a strong believer not just in using the right tool for the job, but also realizing that a lot of tools can get the job done. It's a matter of learning more about the end goals and focusing on how the authoring experience overall helps us achieve those goals.

I've been playing and studying video games since I was a kid. Since learning that anyone can make them, I've been studying to be able to make my own. I have fun early memories of dragging my mom to the library to checkout books on Java (which I'm still not a fan of haha) and Game Design. Games are what inspired me to learn to how program.