michael garten
Bio
“I grew up on a farm outside of a small town, which led me to learn to entertain myself pretty early, mostly by tearing things apart to see how they work, or building Lego cities. After high school, I went to Longview Community College for a year to play baseball then transferred to Missouri State University to study Marketing. Once I graduated, I spent some time in account management/project management based roles, and I found myself building the tools to help my co-workers do their jobs. I’ve always enjoyed studying how people interact with their daily processes and routines. I decided to make a career of turning those processes and routines into software.“
Q&A
Q: Why did you decide to come to Centriq?
A: A few years ago my brother-in-law and I had talked about wanting to learn how to code, which we tried on our own. He decided to come to Centriq, loved every second of it, and has been doing interesting work that he enjoys, ever since. I was still struggling to learn on my own and grinding through jobs that weren’t very fulfilling for me. My family told me they could help me pay the bills for four months while I was in school and convinced me to make the plunge.
Q: What class has been your favorite so far?
A: All of it! Without having a Full Stack tool belt, the individual subjects would not be as much fun to interact with. I love the community spirit surrounding the Front End languages, the logic and order of the mid-tier/MVC programming patterns, and the readability and speed of SQL. Bringing them all together and having a fully-functional app is exciting.
Q: What do you hope to do after Centriq?
A: I’d love to find a position that allows me to interact with a wide variety of projects and technologies, and I have a few side projects I’d love to start on as well. I know there are things I don’t know and a lot more I don’t realize yet that I don’t know, so I mainly want to continue learning and being challenged each day.
Q: What other interests do you have?
A: I love to play golf, binge watch TV shows and documentaries, or lay by the pool during the summer. I’ve also been an avid reader my entire life.?? Poe, Frost and Malcolm Gladwell are my favorites, but I’ll read anything I can get my hands on.