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def hello
  puts 'Hello World!'
end

Welcome

Welcome to the site! Thank you for visiting. My name is Gary Coffey. I created this site to showcase some of my favorite coding projects as well as to write various blogs. I figured I would use this page to talk about myself (career/hobbies/etc).

Career

For this section, I don’t want to add yet another resume that I will have to keep up to date. I just want to talk in general about the companies I have worked for and give a general overview of my positions/experiences.

I have a long career that includes software engineering insert time once retired and 7 years in the Air Force before that. I have enjoyed both experiences and I am thankful for all opportunities they have opened up for me.

• Software Engineering

I love this career! The greatest thing about working with software is not having to go into work and fake enthusiasm about what I am doing. I enjoy working in software. It is like solving riddles all day at work.

I got into this career by completing fourteen weeks at Code Platoon boot camp. Code Platoon is an awesome Veteran focused coding boot camp and I have some more info about my experiences there in the education section.

After completing Code Platoon, I got my first job as a Software Apprentice through Code Platoons apprentice partnership with Enova. Enova has been really great for me and I have learned so much since starting there. They have a great work culture, and I’ve been fortunate to work with so many smart people that have been willing to help teach me what I didn’t learn in the bootcamp.

• Air Force

I spent 7 years in the United States Air Force. I was given some really awesome opportunities during this time. After training, I spent the entirety of my time working on the jet you see above, the B-2 Bomber. It is a really awesome machine.

I had serval jobs throughout my time in the Air Force.

• I started out as an Electronic Warfare Avionics technician. That was also my AFSC title but my work title changed with my other jobs. This job was mainly involved with troubleshooting/replacing the B-2’s electronic warfare systems.

• My next job in the Air Force was working as a Linux Systems Administrator for the computers that processed flight data for the B-2. The main part of this job was completing common Admin duties of setting up accounts for other users, helping with password resets, performing audits, data backups, etc. This was the first position that really helped build the foundation for my software engineering career. Here I got to start learning terminal navigation and even got to fix some scripts that were written in pearl.

• My final job in the Air Force was working as a testing director for the B-2 training system. This role dealt with some contracting elements, course curriculum, and (the coolest part) upgrading maintenance and flight simulators. For maintenance and pilots, a lot of training has to be done before/during the time someone is allowed to complete the tasks on the actual B-2. For that reason, we made sure that when contractors completed new course curriculum or updates to the trainers, that everything was correct. To do that, we would compile a list of required system tests and coordinate the completion of them.

Languages and Technologies

Awards

HERP DERP Best Tech 2019 – Enova

One of the cool experiences I had at Enova was participating in Herp Derp 2019. The idea of this challenge was to make something cool and Halloween themed using a Raspberry Pi and programming. Our team one the award for best tech. I have some more written about it in the projects section if your curious.

Volunteering

I think volunteering is a great way to give back to a community and to help develop technical skills. I have done a lot of volunteer work for Code Platoon since graduating. I am current the Vice President of the Code Platoon Alumni Association and we have several projects in the works (discussed in the projects section).

I also helped with the #WomenWhoGO organization here in Chicago. I helped out with hosting setup and even helped develop a frontend for a Go battleship game backend that they created. We completed this projects in 2019 by meeting once a month.

Media Attention

I was recognized here as the Code Platoon Alumni of the Month.

Shortly after graduating from Code Platoon, CBS news Chicago reached out interested in doing a news piece about under-employed veterans. You can see the full news post here.

The company that I currently work for was also interested in a blog post about my journey into coding. You can read about that here.

I was also contacted by a University student who was interested in writing a story about Karin and I. You can read about it here.