hello my name is saoirse(she/her) and this is my digital space. useful things may or may not end up here but you're welcome to stick around or just leave and fly a kite or something.
my name is pronounced sur · shuh. if you like downton abbey and/or care about royal weddings you can also pronounce it seeuh · shuh. here are the sound bites if you need more help.
i'm a software engineer who has mainly done full stack web dev with js. my aspirations are focused on team leadership, product design and project ownership. i dont see myself in an application dev role forever but i still like it for now, ideally i will pivot into a product/ui/ux designer 😊
i'm passionate about how car-based infrastructure is the worst thing to ever happen and it actively makes your life worse. i have sources. i want you to ask about this so you can be mad with me. misery loves company.
love island uk is my guily pleasure. i just love all the dumb slang they use like "im chuffed" and "mugged off". yes im aware its toxic. yes im aware its heteronormative. we all have our vices. 🤷🏼♀️
i'm a big fan of reading. i try to read a bunch. i particularly like speculative fiction, gothic, horror and queer stories.
tech space: my comfort zone is full stack web development with js/ts but i'm flexbile and willing to pivot. before my job at blueprint i didnt know any js/ts or how to make a website and i picked it up quickly. however, i rather have a role in product/ui/ux design than in implementation. ideally i would still use this tech stack, but mainly to prototype interfaces after ive mocked them up in figma.
role: so far ive mainly been an individual contributor in application development but thats not what i want to do forever. the thing i enjoy more than anything else is collaborating with others, technical and non-technical. I dream of working on cross-functional teams, interfacing with different departments, synthesizing information, collaborating on features and advocating for both our users and team members. so my ideal role is whatever role allows me to do that. i think the happiest version of myself can check all these boxes and thrive as a product designer (or someone who works closely with one)
company: so far ive been at both ends of the spectrum size-wise. at blueprint the engineering team was about 6 people and i worked with around 10 on a weekly basis. overall, the whole company was around 30 people. then i worked at amazon which is one of the largest corpations on the planet. i think something on the smaller size is right for me but i care more about the mission than anything else. i'd love to work niche tech, healthcare, or something serving marginalized communities.
i wasnt here for very long but i still managed to get a lot done. pretty much exclusively worked with java and spring making/extending/maintaing applications (full stack role). day to day work was focused on small, metric driven tasks. got a lot of experience figuring out complex tech stacks and workflows without much (if any) documentation.
tiny seed stage startup. very tight knit engineering team that worked with other departments closely, especially the design team and the customer support team. huge emphasis on project/feature ownership. typical feature lifecycle breakdown: design, implement and code review as individuals or pairs. design review and test as a team. tech stack was almost entirely javascript and typescript. the bulk of the engineering work involved a postgresql server, 2 node servers, 2 react apps, a react native mobile app, and a couple of microservices (typically involving aws lambda). we used aws daily, especially lambda. i was offically part time until i graduated college but nevertheless i made significant contributions during that time
orignally started as an aerospace engineering major but became disenchanted with the idea of calculating stress forces on wings and making missiles. plus i had a lot of fun messing with python so i switched to computer science. that being said, rocket science and space are both rad as heck and i've explored working at blue origin and spacex
if you would like an actual 1 page resume just email me for the latest copy. its mostly the same information but with capitalization, metrics and a pretty font :)
i was going to use the good reads api for this but its been deprecated. i guess the gold mine of book-cataloging-based social media dried up. shocker. (i kid i would totally make this if it didnt already exist) so this will just be a hand picked list of books that i like and value
gothic queer fiction. its a real book about the haunted production of a fictional movie based on a fictional non-fiction book about fictional tragic events involving a fictionally cursed but actually real book. just trust me. involves girls kissing. 👩👩👧
semi horror fiction. absolutely divine. this book made me feel claustrophobic. i needed to actually stop and do a breathing excercise. you know that feeling when you've had too much to drink and youre looking at yourself in the mirror in the bathroom and you start to dissociate a bit and think 'oh god oh fuck help me?' this book is that.
speculative fiction. this book feels like youre by an eldery persons bedside listening to them aimlessly romp around their memories with little rhyme or reason and these memories make you increasingly uncomfortable. dont look up anything about this book before reading it, trust me.
queer fiction thats basically a little trans slice of life. has multiple POVs of different people at different stages of transition. its grounded and relatable and funny and made by/for trans ppl.
shop local! find an indie book store near you here