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Hello, I'm Aaron. I'm a full-stack developer with 3+ years of experience. I enjoy designing and building websites & apps. My focus is React (Next.js) & TypeScript.

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About me

* UNDER CONSTRUCTION *

After becoming an optometrist, I discovered programming by trying to automate some work for the front desk, and became instantly hooked. I went the self-guided route, taking a myriad of online courses from outstanding instructors as I learned full-stack web development. B

My favorite part of programming is the ability to have any (tech-related) idea and put it into existence. It's been a long journey for me to figure out the best career path for myself, but I'm quite confident that I've arrived. I love so much about programming -- the constant problem-solving, the discrete and organized way of thinking that programming encourages, the ability to constantly be rewarded through increased productivity and efficiency with the more effort that you put into it. It's all the right fit for who I am.

My current preferred stack is the T3 Stack (React 18+ (RSCs), NextJS 13+ (app router), TypeScript, Prisma, tRPC, Zod, NodeJS), MUI, React Hook Form, and MongoDB. I am always doing my best to stay up-to-date with the quickly evolving JavaScript world, to keep my stack fresh with the latest and best in DX and UX. I am also familiar with a number of other libraries and languages.

When I'm not coding, I enjoy working out, watching tv shows and movies, traveling, and having social fun.

If you're curious about my career transition from optometry to software development, you can read more about it here.

My skills

Frontend
Backend
Database
Validation
Forms
Testing
DevOps
Hosting
Animation
Toasts
Data Fetching
State Management
Tables
Stack
ORM
Language
Web Scraping
React
UI
Styling
Documentation
Charting
API

My experience

My projects

Pavewise

I'm currently working as a full-stack developer at this startup since 7/2023. Advanced project management software for asphalt paving companies.

React
TypeScript
MUI
Ruby on Rails
PostgreSQL
Project I worked on

DataVis

Software that allows for custom data visualization and analysis. Data is either uploaded (CSV format) or pulled from any 3rd party API endpoint, schema is determined, and then presented in a powerful table format with charting and statistical analysis.

React
TypeScript
T3 Stack
NextJS
Material UI
ApexCharts
tRPC
Prisma
Zod
MongoDB
Project I worked on

Electronic Health Records (EHR) System (v2)

Complete redesign and rewrite of previous EHR system with full-stack programming utilizing T3 Stack as the sole software developer.

React
TypeScript
T3 Stack
NextJS
Material UI
tRPC
Prisma
Zod
MongoDB
Project I worked on

Online Scheduling Software

Created software that allows for online booking of appointments and multiple schedule creation for optometry practices with full-stack programming utilizing T3 Stack as the sole software developer. Implemented "schedule groups" allowing for multiple schedules to share the same appointment slots, whereas schedules not in the same groups can have appointments booked at the same time (allowing for the ability to have overlapping appointments of desired types, which is common in optometry practices).

React
TypeScript
T3 Stack
NextJS
Material UI
tRPC
Prisma
Zod
MongoDB
Project I worked on

Invoice Management Software

Created software that allows for personalized external data viewing, custom data manipulation, and the ability to export/download customized data as spreadsheets (.csv/.xlsx formats) matching a desired template. External data is pulled from a 3rd party website on an automatic (and manual, as desired) basis.

React
Material UI
NodeJS
ExpressJS
MongoDB
Web Scraping
Data Export
Project I worked on

Mineral Rights Software

Successfully designed and developed a novel mineral rights tracking and management system for North Dakota mineral right owners with full-stack programming utilizing MERN stack as the sole software developer.

React
Material UI
NodeJS
ExpressJS
MongoDB
ApexCharts
Web Scraping
Project I worked on

Electronic Health Records (EHR) System

Successfully designed and developed a custom electronic health records (EHR) system for the optometry practice with full-stack programming utilizing MERN stack as the sole software developer.

React
Material UI
NodeJS
ExpressJS
MongoDB
Python
Project I worked on

Research Study Candidate Aggregator for Commercial EHR System

Create software that allows for automated research study candidate discovery and aggregation for optometry/ophthalmology-related research studies via automatically creating lists of patients that meet research study criteria based on their EHR data (on a per-practice/per-location basis).

React
Material UI
NodeJS
ExpressJS
MongoDB
Project I worked on

Automated Door Unlocking System

Automatically unlock a smart lock door via button click on website.

React
Bootstrap
NodeJS
ExpressJS
MongoDB
Google Sheets API
IFTTT
Project I worked on

Automated Vision Insurance Verifier

Automatically scrape an online patient schedule and search for the patients on in- network vision insurances portals to (1) find any insurances they have, (2) verify it is active and they are currently eligible, and (3) pull their insurance benefits and put them all together on a single piece of paper for the patients that day.

CLI
Python
Web Scraping
Selenium
Data Export
Project I worked on

Contact me

Please contact me directly at aaronmotacek@gmail.com or through this form.

Other Resources

I've been asked a number of times about "how to get started", "how I made my career transition", etc., so at one point I had written out an email that covers most of those sorts of questions (from my personal experience).

Maybe I'll write a more official blog post about this in the future, but for now, here you go:

Hey X,

Here is some info about my "self-taught" programming journey, and recommendations for someone getting started to become a (web app) software developer today.

Feel free to email me back if you have any questions or anything, whether right away or anytime during your journey if you decide to go down it!

Aaron

My Journey

  • I described my journey in a post in this Self-Taught Programmers Facebook group. See my post and then my big comment within the post for the general journey (see screenshots here, so you don’t have to get accepted into the group)
  • I also did do an independent web design course in college where I learned some HTML and CSS basics, so that helped slightly, but you can learn those pretty quickly with free online courses nowadays

Recommended Journey (for someone just starting out)

Note: this will be if you want to go the completely self-taught / self-guided route… coding bootcamps can also be a great idea (or even a better idea, possibly, as you usually are able to get a job more easily having done a bootcamp vs completely self-taught)

Note: Eventually (or right away), I recommend getting involved with your local developer community/communities

All programmers

  • Learn Python programming language first (Learn Python 3, Codecademy)
  • Learn the basic concepts of programming that are consistent in any programming language:
    • Data types (strings, numbers, lists/arrays, dictionary/object, etc.)
    • Variables
    • Conditionals (if/else statements, etc.)
    • Loops ("for" loop, etc.)
    • Functions

Web app (+ mobile app?)

  1. HTML/CSS courses

    (I already had this knowledge… probably Codecademy basic courses is a good place to start)

  2. Create a Full Stack Application (via a course)

    Python's Django framework (opinionated, full-stack framework)

    You probably need to (or should) become a "full stack" programmer in today's market (have an understanding and experience with the front end, back end, and database). Django is a good one to work with, as it does a lot of the set up for you so that you can get started rather quickly.

    I would look for a tutorial/course or two to get started (I don't remember what one I did) — look into Codecademy, Udemy, and even YouTube (but I would probably start with Codecademy or Udemy first)

  3. Create a Full Stack Application (personal project)
    • Use what you learned about Django, and try to create your own project for some idea you have
    • Use your tutorial/course projects as a starter template, and then just start editing/changing/adding/removing things from there for what you want to do
  4. Learn the MERN stack (less opinionated, full-stack framework)

    Ultimately, using Django for full-stack web apps isn't standard or very common practice these days (the point was to use Python since you already have experience with it, and then learn the basic concepts of full stack apps (Django being very "opinionated" helps with that)

    MERN stack is all based on a different language — JavaScript. So it's time to learn your second programming language!

    1. Learn JavaScript (JS)

    Note: With JavaScript, learning when/where to put brackets and semicolons will be annoying, but don't worry, eventually your code editor (aka IDE) will help you out with that (highly recommend Visual Studio Code now that you're switching to JavaScript, if you haven't already been using it)

    1. Front End

      ReactJS (React for the Rest of Us, Brad Schiff)

    2. Back End

      NodeJS, ExpressJS ("E"/"N" of MERN)

      • …already learning via (2)

    3. Database

      MongoDB ("M" of MERN)

      **until you start feeling the need to be more knowledgeable with MongoDB (e.g. you want to change a lot of stuff in the database but don't know how), you can skip this

  5. Play around with the MERN stack (personal projects)

    Continue using the MERN stack to develop personal projects, and that's how you'll really start gaining a true understanding of how things work. Build a few different personal projects if you want, but definitely one more "complex" project (e.g. multiple collections of data in MongoDB that allow the CRUD operations for, login/logout functionality, etc.)

  6. …wherever you want to go from there
    • Start looking into jobs you can apply for
    • Consider a bootcamp (still helpful even having gotten here on your own)
    • Consider The Odin Project

Video Games

  • C# ("C sharp") is the language you'll likely want to learn (Codecademy)
  • Unity (software program to develop video games — utilizes C#)

Other areas of interest

Google different areas within programming:

  • Data Science
  • etc.