Hello, I’m Avand.
I am a full-stack software engineer, product designer, and teacher. I’ve been working on the web for over a decade and am passionate about building great products.
I currently work at Airbnb, where I help internal product teams stay abreast with customer feedback. Before that, I was at Mystery Science, transforming how elementary school teachers teach science. And since 2013, I’ve worked on-and-off with General Assembly, teaching aspiring developers what I know about front-end web development.
I was born in Boston, grew up in Salt Lake City, and spent many years living in Chicago. Now, I call San Francisco my home.
I’m an aspiring rock climber. I have a love affair with music and cars, especially vintage BMWs and Volkswagens. One day, I’ll buy a van and transform it into an offroad-capable camping rig.
But that’s enough about me. How can I help you?
The Greatest Hits
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One man’s search for the perfect job
As we wrapped up Sunday night dinner at my apartment, my neighbor remembered, “hey, it’s Pi Day tomorrow, we should head down to Pi Bar for a few slices to celebrate…
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Your bookshelf, where books go to die
I admire bookshelves stocked with books. They’re so inspiring. I stand in awe of this literal wall of knowledge. “Imagine if I knew all the information stored in all…
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Nobody cares about your software updates
Look, I get it. You practice agile development, iterate weekly, run tests automatically, and deploy continuously. You pride yourself on shipping changes quickly and how could…
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Thirty
Ever since I was 15, I wanted to be 30. Nobody listens to you when you’re a kid. You have no means and no experience so you’re doing everything for the first time. And unless…
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Hypothesis-driven development
I’ll bet that you can’t explain why you’re working on whatever it is you’re working on right now. Scary, right? Because we know that the why of what we’re doing is perhaps…
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Momentum
Startups move fast. They’re young, loud, and disruptive – a room full of excited twenty-somethings willing to burn the midnight oil to get a release out the door. Startups are enticing…
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Play Strength, a Rdio Feature Concept
Music can make or break a party. And picking good music to play is hard. I think it should be easy. Here, I take a closer look at creating a great setlist with Rdio. I start with…
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School’s Out Forever
Growing up, I was told that the most important ingredient for my future was an education. Do your homework, study hard and the road ahead will lead to a…