Zach K.

Background

About Zach K.

I’m currently a software engineer at Nationwide working on tooling to secure our software supply chain. I’m very thankful to have gained experience writing a wide variety of applications in different languages (spring boot, github probot in typescript, python, golang), including CI/CD pipelines, Docker containerization and Kubernetes orchestration. I also enjoy supporting our tooling and working with development teams across Nationwide to get their software supply chains safe and secure. I’m excited to continue learning everyday, and my current goal is to earn a CKAD certificate! My story: I’ve always been on a search to figure out how things work, and I still hold on to the curiosity and passion for learning that I had when I was young. As a private music teacher from 2016-2021, I realized that I love to help others learn almost as much as I myself love to learn. I gained a lot of experience making complicated concepts clear for other people. I also learned how to work with each student as an individual learner by customizing my curriculum to help students reach their goals. I even created a book which was published and used by other teachers and students across the country. These skills helped me grow and retain a studio of 40+ private students per week. In 2020, life circumstances pushed me to investigate other career paths and I started to use free resources to learn Web Development whenever I wasn’t making music or teaching. Once I gained some basic skills I felt a desire to apply what I learned, so I made a website for my music quartet called Knisely. We still use the site today. After making some other little projects I realized that I wanted to go all in and take the next step, so in September of 2021 I enrolled in Tech Elevator. I thoroughly enjoyed learning all of the curriculum at Tech Elevator, and the collaborative atmosphere with the other students was very memorable. I proudly graduated from Tech Elevator in December of 2021 and accepted my first position in tech as a Software Developer in Secure Software Delivery at Nationwide. Since being at Nationwide, I thankfully have grown way more than I ever expected. I went from developing simple full stack apps locally on my machine to developing and deploying microservices in the cloud, including their CI/CD configurations! Now I’m curious to hear your story. Send me a message so we can connect!