Briefly About Me...

I'm Matt, a Python developer with a background in machine learning and analytics. I've held a number of different positions across different industries. Recently I've been working as a solutions engineer working with customers to implement intelligent document processing and conversational AI systems. What I enjoy about working as a solutions engineer is the variety of difficult problems I get to work on. Each day has new challenges to learn from. Prior to getting into solution engineering I worked as a data scientist building models to help improve the delivery of healthcare.

How did you learn to code?

I'm a self taught programmer so I've had countless teachers. In school I never took a formal computer science class. Everything I've learned about programming has been either on the job or through learning on my own. I learn best by doing, so I've spent a lot of time building and learning from my mistakes. I've been fortunate to have had great mentors along the way who have been patient with and let me explore new ideas and apply them to my job.

Since then I've tried to give back by writing, live streaming, and teaching others how to code.

What is my proudest moment?

Working with a health plan to develop a program to manage patients with chronic healthcare needs that were underserved was incredibly rewarding. The Persistent High-Needs Model model helped identify patients with chronic and persistent needs who could benefit. Hearing feed Anytime you hear stories about how your products affect the lives of people in a real way makes for a proud moment. You can read more about the model here.

What is your best skill?

Learning. I'm a big fan of being a lifelong learner and how I can apply what I learn to my work. Learning new things allows you to look at existing processes and develop more efficient solutions. One example of this was recognizing analysts were frequently copying results from SQL queries into Excel report templates. To streamline this process I learned VBA. Learning VBA allowed me to write a script to call an SQL stored procedure and then populate the Excel worksheet with the data from the SQL response. What previously took a week of an analyst's time could be done in a matter of minutes!

Will you ever do code live streams again?

Honest answer is I don't know. The main resource constraint is time. Being able to set aside a one or two hour block on a regular basis to do a stream is more of luxury these days. Doing coding livestreams was a way to explore new ideas in public. I was able create fun projects like Mimosa and talk about them with viewers. Working on the Mets Twitter Sentiment project had me thinking about how to augment live streaming experiences to make them more interactive for the viewers. Twitch is a great way to test out ideas related to that, so I might find myself back streaming again soon!