I’m Nicki. I talk to computers, make photographs, and think too much. (I am now entertaining a debate in my head as to whether there is any such thing as thinking too much.)
In October 2019, I joined Bitly as a backend engineer in BitlyIQ. For a few years after completing grad school in 2016, I worked as a backend software engineer for Arable Labs, an agricultural tech startup that was still designing and prototyping their crop and weather sensor device (the Mark) when I joined, and before I left had Marks up and running in fields around the world. Before this, I studied computer science at the University of Pennsylvania; I spent my electives on natural language processing, machine learning, and web systems, and was a three-time TA, in courses on computer architecture and algorithms. As an undergrad, I studied philosophy at Lewis & Clark College (with a slight emphasis on ethical theory), and before that art at a school in Virginia that you’ve probably never heard of.
Between the philosophy and the computer science, I worked in Denver, for a brief while in AmeriCorps, helping low-income families save energy and water, and for a longer while in an office where I regularly had occasion to be paraded in front of a group of boldly assertive, wildly gregarious trainers-in-training and be asked to convey to them, somehow, what it is like to be a chimera neither boldly assertive nor (even a little bit) wildly gregarious.
I have made websites since high school. For a time, I used to proudly display a “made with Notepad” icon on the front page; if you are unfamiliar with those icons, good. Proper editors are a good thing.
I also used to write poems. I don’t do that anymore. I sing, but only when I think no one hears me; I play piano the same way, and not entirely without reason. I devoured MOOCs when they first cropped up – game theory, astronomy, literature, music. I care about font choice more than most people (but not quite enough to say “typeface” instead); this website features Prociono and Raleway, from the League of Moveable Type, with Megrim for the title. I read, when I can, and collect quotes that make me laugh or make me think or, once in a beautiful while, do both.