About Brian

Just who is this Hamburg character, anyway?

Father of twins.
Strummer of strings.
Wrangler of the Web.
Implementer of interfaces.
Purveyor of pixels.

Hamburg FamilyThe 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

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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. I strive to create components that are usable and reusable.

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 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 for a $100 million-revenue home warranty company with more than 450 employees. Utilizing headless CMS solutions with React (Gatsby.js and Next.js), creating front-end wireframes/mockups with Figma, and contributing to back-end design and implementation as necessary.

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
Maintained and created editable components for the enterprise content management system and associated APIs for redcross.orgopen in new window and redcrossblood.orgopen in new window. Implemented new automated testing with JUnit, Jasmine, and Cypress.

Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health

Web Developer

July 2015 – February 2021
As a member of Jefferson’s IS&T department, created and maintained editable web templates and components for public-facing websitesopen in new window built within AEM with HTL (Sightly), server-side JavaScript, and Java. Often contributed to the development of other React web applications as needed.

Front-End Web Developer

September 2012 – July 2015
As a member of Jefferson's marketing team, created landing pages, microsites, WordPress themes, banner ads, and email campaigns for clinical and university clients. Updated existing Sitecore templates for the main hospital website. Redesigned the hospital appointment request form with a responsive layout, enhancing usability and decreasing the abandonment rate. Trained users in WordPress, SurveyGizmo, and MailChimp.

Law School Admission Council

Web Services Specialist

September 2008 – September 2012
Created new and updated existing web pages for LSAC.orgopen in new window to adhere to W3C accessibility standards. Converted the intranet portal from a static web site to a Microsoft SharePoint site. Administered WebTrends and Google Analytics on LSAC.org and the intranet portal. Created and maintained online surveys in SurveyGizmo with Salesforce integration.

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 2021open in new window

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 Bandopen in new window for over 20 years, a perennial favorite in the New Year's Day Mummers Paradeopen in new window. 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 Databaseopen in new window, 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 FPGAopen in new window hardware emulation project and the RetroTINKopen in new window line of analog-to-digital video upscalers. I've also more recently become a huge fan of the Soulsborneopen in new window games by FromSoftware, mostly playing them on PlayStation 5.

Zelda on PVM via MiSTer FPGAThe Legend of Zelda on my PVM via MiSTer FPGA