About Brian Hamburg
Father of twins.
Strummer of strings.
Wrangler of the Web.
Implementer of interfaces.
Purveyor of pixels.
The Hamburgs in Walt Disney World
I’m a software engineer, designer, and musician. Most of my days are spent working and playing in Philadelphia where I live with my wife, Andrea, and twin daughters, Elizabeth and Louise. But this is just the tip of the Brian Hamburg iceberg. Within these pages you can learn more about what's going on in my life professionally and recreationally.
Ultimately I'm just trying to balance being a father, husband, son, web professional, musician, nerd, colleague, friend, and decent human being in the crazy world we currently live in.
Résumé
Summary
With over a decade of experience building user interfaces for the Web and providing technical support, my focus has always been to remove friction from the user experience with an appreciation for both accessibility and aesthetics.
Key technologies used include vanilla JS, Vue, Angular, React, jQuery, Sass/CSS, and Bootstrap on the front end; Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) with HTL (Sightly) templates written in Java/Apache Sling on the back end; automated testing with Cypress, Vitest, Vue Test Utils, JUnit, and Jasmine; and Git, GitHub Actions, and Jenkins for CI/CD.
Professional Experience
Oncourse Home Solutions
Senior Software Engineer
July 2023 – Present
Leading UI development of internal and external-facing web software initiatives. Utilizing headless CMS solutions with React (Gatsby and Next.js) for a nationwide home warranty e-commerce platform, creating front-end wireframes/mockups with Figma, and contributing to back-end design and implementation.
The Walt Disney Company
Senior Software Engineer – Front End
February 2022 – July 2023
Led front-end software quality initiatives and drove major feature releases. Built and maintained user interfaces with Vue.js for software that controls the content delivery ecosystem for properties including Disney+, ESPN+, and Star+. Implemented new automated testing with Vitest, Vue Test Utils, and Cypress.
American Red Cross
Full-Stack Developer
February 2021 – February 2022
Created and maintained features for redcross.org and redcrossblood.org within the enterprise web content management system (AEM) and contributed to associated APIs. Implemented new automated testing with JUnit, Jasmine, and Cypress.
Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health
Web Developer
September 2012 – February 2021
Created and maintained features for Jefferson.edu and jeffersonhealth.org within the enterprise web content management system (AEM), utilizing server-side JavaScript, and Java. Contributed to the development of other front-end web applications as needed, utilizing vanilla JS and React, Sass/CSS, and HTML.
Law School Admission Council
Web Services Specialist
September 2008 – September 2012
Created and maintained features for LSAC.org, leading an initiative to make web content adhere to WC3 accessibility guidelines. Converted the intranet portal from a static web site to a Microsoft SharePoint site.
Information Systems Specialist
September 2006 – September 2008
Provided technical support to internal employees and external customers, diagnosing and documenting technical issues pertaining to the company’s web site, in-house software, and licensed software. Trained and assisted co-workers to support Macintosh users. Provided quality assurance testing for online law school applications and contributed to documentation for law school application creation and QA processes.
Education
Master’s Certificate in Application Development
La Salle University
Obtained in 2013 while pursuing Master of Science degree in Computer Science
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
La Salle University
Graduated 2011, Magna Cum Laude
Associate of Arts in Busines Administration
Bucks County Community College
Graduated 2010
Associate of Arts in Graphic Design
CHI Institute
Graduated 2006
Certifications
AWS Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Issued June 2021
Music
Oh, the places you’ll go... with a banjo!
When I'm not behind my laptop, you can often find me behind my four-string, plectrum banjo, plunking out traditional jazz favorites written circa a century ago. The style I play is less Country Bear Jamboree and more Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, if that makes any sense.
I've been a member of the world-renowned Fralinger String Band for over 20 years, a perennial favorite in the New Year's Day Mummers Parade. Fralinger has traveled literally around the world with performances that have taken us to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and as far as Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year celebration. I've also been fortunate to have the chance to play with some great traditional jazz musicians as part of small hot jazz and Dixieland ensembles in the Philadelphia area.
Other Hobbies
Besides keeping this site up-to-date using the latest tech, I also helped build the String Band Database, which is a searchable listing of string band themes from the Mummers Parade with videos and parade data. It was a good exercise in using a Google Sheet as a RESTful backend.
I'm always trying to read more. Mostly sci-fi, pop-sci, philosophy, and self-help books, but I'm open to anything. It's hard to find the time, but I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with my reading list. Ryan Holiday and Robert Greene are two of my more recent favorite authors.
I like to think playing Super Mario Bros. and arcade games in the late 80s, and tinkering with DOS and Windows 95 to get multiplayer Doom going, is what initially drove my interest in technology, and specifically interactive digital experiences. My tastes gravitate towards games from and inspired by that 8- and 16-bit age of pixel art. Also, the heavily-syncopated, early-jazz-inspired soundtracks of the games from the NES/SNES era definitely affected my musical taste in a positive way. I love cathode-ray tube scan lines in 240p RGB, and keeping up with the latest advances in FPGA-based systems with near-perfect accuracy and zero-to-low input latency, particularly the MiSTer FPGA hardware emulation project and the RetroTINK line of analog-to-digital video upscalers. I've also more recently become a huge fan of the Soulsborne games by FromSoftware, mostly playing them on PlayStation 5.
The Legend of Zelda on my PVM via MiSTer FPGA