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Tamara Dowis

software engineer | former science educator | lifelong learner
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About me

Self-motivated and adaptable Back End Software Engineer looking for an entry-level position where I can leverage the soft skills gained through my previous experiences as a science educator and project manager.

Developing and facilitating dynamic systems is my passion. I feel most aligned working in a diverse and collaborative environment with individuals who share my commitment to engineering quality software and creating positive impacts within the communities we are part of.

Professionally, I worked on wall street for a number of years, then reevaluated my life goals after 9/11 and pivoted to working internationally with NGOs. I spent some time in southeast India working with families affected by leprosy and then in rural Kenya working to provide solar power to small medical institutions and schools. These experiences led me to university to study Biology, and then to teach science within the creative environments of two international schools.

Through all of this, I have learned that there are three internal aspects that keep me grounded; my ability to solve challenging problems, designing systems that are practical while also being engaging, and a talent of being able to ‘herd cats’ toward a common goal (think middle school students and lab experiments).

The changing state of this world led to me a year-long reflection about what my personal goals are and what capacity I best thrive in. I enthusiastically choose to enter the world of software development as I feel that it is the gateway to help create the change I am so passionate about. I also happen to absolutely enjoy doing it as well.

Preferred locations

  • None specified
Open to remote work

Previous industries

  • Financial Services
  • Primary/Secondary Education

Skills

  • Atom
  • Bootstrap
  • Git
  • GitHub
  • Heroku
  • Management
  • Mentorship
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • Rails
  • RSpec
  • Ruby
  • SQL
  • User Authentication

Currently learning

  • Continuous Integration
  • DevOps
  • JavaScript
  • Kubernetes

Projects

Weather sweater?

Weather sweater?

Project scope time 20 hours
Collaborators

Tools Used

  • Atom
  • Git
  • GitHub
  • Rails
  • RSpec
  • Ruby
  • User Authentication

Service-oriented architecture designed to communicate with a front-end team using APIs. This back-end application

  • Allows for the creation of an account by sending a JSON payload in the body of the request. A successful response will return the user's unique API key that can be used to access the other endpoints.

  • Consumes data from 4 different API endpoint resources, aggerates the data, and exposes the data through 4 endpoints.

  • Utilised a serializer to expose the data according to the JSON schema contract.

Code Repository
Screenshot detail for project Weather sweater?
Screenshot thumbnail #1 for project Weather sweater? Screenshot thumbnail #2 for project Weather sweater? Screenshot thumbnail #3 for project Weather sweater? Screenshot thumbnail #4 for project Weather sweater?

Little Etsy Shop

Little Etsy Shop

Project scope time 75 hours
Collaborators Profile picture for Aedan Yturralde Profile picture for Conor Barthel

Tools Used

  • Bootstrap
  • Git
  • GitHub
  • PostgreSQL
  • Rails
  • RSpec
  • Ruby

Fictitious e-commerce platform where merchants and admins can manage inventory and fulfil customer invoices. Group project with a solo sprint to add bulk discount functionality.

  • Incorporated advanced SQL & Active Record techniques to perform complex database queries.

  • Imported CSV data

  • Deployed to Heroku

  • Consumed API for creating holiday discounts

  • RSpec tested with 99.95% coverage

Launch the App Code Repository
Screenshot detail for project Little Etsy Shop
Screenshot thumbnail #1 for project Little Etsy Shop Screenshot thumbnail #2 for project Little Etsy Shop Screenshot thumbnail #3 for project Little Etsy Shop Screenshot thumbnail #4 for project Little Etsy Shop