{"id":7,"date":"2020-08-02T17:19:04","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T17:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/?page_id=7"},"modified":"2024-08-20T16:31:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T16:31:52","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I am primarily a back-end software engineer with a broad general skill set. While I prefer back-end work with PHP and MySQL, I tend to work in startup cultures where I can put my hands on everything. From researching and implementing infrastructure options, to writing the back-end code and piecing together the front-end, I can take a project from an idea to a workable product entirely on my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of my biggest hobbies is online gaming. I enjoy it so much that I try to incorporate gaming into my work. My side projects are websites or tools for whichever games I play, and I almost always end up at companies in the gaming space. I made websites for Counter-Strike 1.6 teams back in the early 2000s, RuneScape tools and World of Warcraft gear calculators in the late 2000s, and Team Fortress 2 tools in the early-to-mid 2010s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m also a caretaker to my spouse, and into hiking, fitness, nutrition, dogs, photography, and economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Work History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>2020-Current: Sr. Software Engineer at [Undisclosed]<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2019: Sr. Software Engineer at <a href=\"https:\/\/virl.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">vIRL<\/a>,  a still-running NFT experiment where NFTs are backed by real-life goods<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2018: Lead Back-End Engineer at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/vgo_gg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">VGO<\/a>, a test application on WAX for cross-game virtual skins<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2017-2020: Sr. Software Engineer at <a href=\"https:\/\/wax.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WAX<\/a>, a gamer-focused blockchain built with web API integration and NFTs in mind<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2017-2020: Lead Software Engineer at OPSkins<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2015-2016: Software Engineer at <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180519200934\/https:\/\/opskins.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">OPSkins<\/a>, the first, and largest, virtual skins marketplace in the world<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2013-2016: Co-founder &amp; Developer of <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/firepowered.org\" target=\"_blank\">FirePowered Gaming<\/a>, the largest donor-funded Team Fortress 2 community in the world at the time<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2012-2013: Developer at Drunken Bombers (gaming community)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2011-2013: Freelance Joomla developer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1999-2010: Web Hobbyist<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am primarily a back-end software engineer with a broad general skill set. While I prefer back-end work with PHP and MySQL, I tend to work in startup cultures where I can put my hands on everything. From researching and implementing infrastructure options, to writing the back-end code and piecing together the front-end, I can&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jakeforrester.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}