About Me

👋 Hi, I’m Nick Babcock (résumé: html / pdf).

• 10+ years of fullstack experience (React, Next.js, Python, Rust, Postgres)
• Principal developer behind flagship products from startups to big tech
• Expertise ranging from systems programming to frontend mental models
• Thrives on up-leveling teams and the organizations
• Open source creator of apps and libraries surpassing 2 million downloads

And I’m more than just a programmer:

• Amateur homelabber
• Boardgame bungler
• University of Michigan alumnus
• Boutique small form factor admirer

Career Journey

When I was graduating college, I was faced with a choice: work as a startup’s founding engineer or at a prestigious hedge fund. I chose the startup, for a simple reason: I crave knowledge and impact, two things amplified when working as a founding engineer and have followed me throughout my career.

We started from a shared desk in a co-working space, selling a web portal I wrote in Python and React. The success of this product catapulted us into larger offices with bigger teams to take on more ambitious projects. My role evolved into a tech lead, mentoring others and being a trailblazer for new projects.

One of these projects opened a new revenue stream, when we were able to break into healthcare consulting under the state of Michigan. I had rewrote one of their services in Java and reduced their costs by 96% — all within a month. Client was so impressed that this fueled many years of growth where we soon became a linchpin in the success of services powering healthcare in the state.

After 9 years of honing my craft with Python, Java, React, Rust, web servers, databases, and message queues, I realized what I wanted next was exposure to other industries, so I decided to join an ecommerce company at the height of the pandemic.

A direct to consumer business was eye-opening and gave me access to a host of cross functional opportunities: from operations to marketing to customer support. As the lead developer, my role was creating solutions born from collaborating with these teams.

This was a good learning experience, but I wanted to scale up further, so I joined Dropbox. I quickly found myself contributing frontend talks at a company-wide conference, and regularly presenting technical deep dives. I learned how my distinguishable skills and passion can be used effectively in big tech.

Every employer has been a different shape and size, but despite these differences, I have always found success, and one thing has been clear, I enjoy and have a knack for up-leveling teams and organizations. I set them up for short-term success with long-term foundations.

How does that sound? Let’s chat.

Nick.