Howdy, and welcome to my corner of the internet (does this imply that the internet has corners? Does an edge node count as a corner?).
My name is Dashiell (although, many call me Dash) and I currently work as a software engineer in San Francisco, California.
Before we begin with the information you're probably here for, I feel like some background knowledge about who I am is in order.
I was raised in the boonies (read: suburbs) of New York City and spent much of my life interacting with computers and technology at large (read: playing video games instead of doing my homework or studying for exams).
Despite the fact that I was spending so much time not studying, a university thought I was a good enough fit, so I packed my bags and moved to Montreal, Canada to study physics. Physics? Huh?
Yeah, I intended to go to graduate school and do the whole academic thing. After about four months of physics classes, I learned two things: I needed to brush up on my calculus and that I REALLY did not like physics.
With that dream (or, looking back, nightmare) quashed, I said which of the remaining fields were the most appealing: statistics, pure mathematics, or computer science?
My thought process was as followed: I'm not going to do just statistics -- why would I do something so applied if I can just do pure and take applied courses? And, I'm not going to do pure mathematics because it sounded hard and I hadn't yet learned about the beauty of proofs. So the only option that remained was computer science.
Looking back, I definitely lucked out with pivoting to something I would end up falling in love with. And, over the next few years, I would end up diving deep into computer science and software engineering as a whole.
I had a wonderful time doing many hackathons with my friends (even winning a couple!) and taking courses that completely changed my view on the world (thank you 310, 330, 523, and 527). I was also lucky enough to spend a summer out in the bay making some deeply cherished memories with my dear friends.
Jumping forward a year, McGill somehow got bamboozled into thinking I was ready to graduate and they shipped me back to the bay where I have been ever since.
Currently, I work on recommender systems and distributed systems at Amazon Web Services and spend the vast majority of my free time either bouldering (no top rope for me, I'm afraid of falling), catching up with friends, and playing rhythm games (am I a cliche?).
Honestly, my name is pretty unique, so if you just look it up, you can probably find me on most social media.
And, if you were interested, my name comes from Dashiell Hammett, a 20th century author and political activist. His name comes from the french form of his mother's family name "de Chiel."