This is my first week as a member of the team at DEV! I'm beyond excited to be joining this team of dedicated, passionate humans.

I've been a huge fan of the DEV community since way back when it started at @thepracticaldev on Twitter. As a longtime lurker (and very, very occasional contributor), I've learned so much from DEV community members sharing what they've learned. It's time to give back, and I'm excited to get started!

A Little About Me

Hi there! 👋 I'm 42 years old, and live with my husband and daughter in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin: a tiny town on the shores of Lake Michigan. Our part of the state is in Door County, which is a popular tourist area: it's a peninsula full of beaches, state parks, and cherry orchards. My family has been vacationing here since I was a baby, and a few years ago we were lucky enough to finally make this place our home. Expect the #DoorCounty hastag on DEV to blow up now that I'm here 😂

I've been a software engineer for two decades, working mostly in small startups. Most of my development work over the past few years has been with Ruby: I started using Rails with version 0.9. For the past decade I've worked remotely: remote work has allowed me to remain in this industry despite living far from a metro area.

When I'm not writing software, I'm an avid chef, photographer, and gamer. I'm also one of those crazy CrossFit people 🏋️‍♂️

Goals at DEV

The vast majority of my career has been spent in private, closed source software. I'm excited to be more involved with the open source community, and help DEV accomplish their longer term goals that Ben outlined in his recent post. I'm also going to be focused on helping the DEV team to be an even better remote team by lending my experiences working across multiple time zones.

Want to get in touch? My DM's are open here, and I'm also available on twitter (@joshpuetz) or via email (josh@dev.to).