[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":142},["ShallowReactive",2],{"article-\u002Farticles\u002Finvitation":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"date":126,"description":127,"extension":128,"image":129,"imageAlt":129,"meta":130,"navigation":131,"ogImage":129,"path":132,"seo":133,"sitemap":134,"stem":135,"tags":136,"tldr":140,"__hash__":141},"articles\u002Farticles\u002Finvitation.md","An invitation: a little about me and this site","Jon Wexler",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":115},"minimark",[10,14,19,38,42,50,57,61,68,72,83,86,90,97,101],[11,12,13],"p",{},"If you have landed on this page from a link, a search, or a friend, welcome. I built this site as a home for the things I care about professionally: how software gets designed, how teams ship, and how people learn. Below is a compact version of my path. If you want the full version later, the details still live in the usual places, but for now, here is the human version.",[15,16,18],"h2",{"id":17},"why-this-site-exists","Why this site exists",[11,20,21,22,27,28,32,33,37],{},"You should not have to dig through a PDF to get a feel for who someone is. Here you will find a ",[23,24,26],"a",{"href":25},"\u002Fportfolio","Portfolio"," take on how I think about work, a ",[23,29,31],{"href":30},"\u002Fbooks","Books"," page if you are curious about my writing, and a ",[23,34,36],{"href":35},"\u002Fcontact","Contact"," page if you want to get in touch. The goal is easy scanning: a few well structured pages instead of a wall of keywords.",[15,39,41],{"id":40},"big-teams-big-surfaces","Big teams, big surfaces",[11,43,44,45,49],{},"A lot of my energy has gone into work where mistakes are expensive and scale is real. At ",[46,47,48],"strong",{},"Bloomberg",", I helped build responsive web products used by millions of people every day, alongside work on data heavy legal analytics, ML for text and recommendations, and the day to day of shipping in a large engineering culture.",[11,51,52,53,56],{},"At ",[46,54,55],{},"Meta (Facebook)",", the problems shifted toward messaging, infrastructure, and very large user surfaces. I led or contributed to iOS, Android, and web initiatives, from messaging and queues to ML driven features that had to be safe, measured, and reliable for people all over the world. More recently I have also worked in the broader Meta ecosystem, including product direction around AI in Reality Labs, where constraints and tooling are still evolving fast.",[15,58,60],{"id":59},"mobile-product-and-startups","Mobile, product, and startups",[11,62,63,64,67],{},"Not everything has been a giant org chart. I have been a senior engineer on ",[46,65,66],{},"React Native"," and payment adjacent flows at a dating product startup, owned releases and push notification pipelines, and sat closer to the product and store submission cycle than a pure platform team sometimes does. That range matters to me. Shipping on a phone in someone’s hand teaches different lessons than shipping a dashboard in a browser.",[15,69,71],{"id":70},"teaching-writing-and-paying-it-forward","Teaching, writing, and paying it forward",[11,73,74,75,78,79,82],{},"I care about clarity for learners. I was ",[46,76,77],{},"Lead Developer and Academic Director"," at the New York Code and Design Academy, where I worked with a team, shaped Rails and Node curriculum, and taught in person. I have been an ",[46,80,81],{},"author with Manning"," on Node.js, with curriculum tied to university use, and I have written and spoken for a wider audience in other channels too.",[11,84,85],{},"I still think of \"engineer\" and \"educator\" as two parts of the same job: you only really know a topic when you can help someone else get unstuck.",[15,87,89],{"id":88},"the-independent-thread","The independent thread",[11,91,92,93,96],{},"For years I have also run my own small shop, ",[46,94,95],{},"Hacky Apps",", where I design and build for clients, coordinate contractors, and stay close to UI and product decisions. It keeps me honest about tradeoffs, timelines, and what \"done\" really means for a business, not just for a ticket.",[15,98,100],{"id":99},"if-you-want-to-go-deeper","If you want to go deeper",[11,102,103,104,107,108,111,112,114],{},"That is the short version. The longer story includes earlier teaching assistant work at ",[46,105,106],{},"Brandeis",", ",[46,109,110],{},"volunteer instruction"," for CodeNation and Re:Coded, a couple of degrees I am still proud of, and a lot of small team wins that do not fit a headline. When you are ready, wander over to the rest of the site, or just say hello through ",[23,113,36],{"href":35},". I am glad you are here.",{"title":116,"searchDepth":117,"depth":118,"links":119},"",2,3,[120,121,122,123,124,125],{"id":17,"depth":117,"text":18},{"id":40,"depth":117,"text":41},{"id":59,"depth":117,"text":60},{"id":70,"depth":117,"text":71},{"id":88,"depth":117,"text":89},{"id":99,"depth":117,"text":100},"2026-04-26","A warm hello if you are new here, plus a short tour of the work I do, based on the same path you would see on my full resume.","md",null,{},true,"\u002Farticles\u002Finvitation",{"title":5,"description":127},{"loc":132},"articles\u002Finvitation",[137,138,139],"career","web","node.js","This is a short tour of my career (Bloomberg, Meta, teaching, writing, and independent work) and an invite to explore the rest of the site, without replacing a full resume.","3hRDhG1Z-EayTNVzrBEyufRJeCsxjs77K9pKNsvxbpU",1777263960996]