I'm Steve Rios, a full-stack web developer who specializes in front-end development

Birthplace and Current Residence: Born and raised in Dallas, Texas - Live in DeSoto, Texas (technically, I live in Glenn Heights, but it's walking distance to DeSoto and you're more likely to have heard of DeSoto than Glenn Heights).

Previous Career: I used to be an Industrial Maintenance Technician, then became a Planner & Scheduler; now I'm a full-stack developer!

Current Role: Software Engineer / Web Developer at Wash Masters Car Wash (Victron Energy). Sole developer tasked with modernizing the tech side of operations — from rebuilding and optimizing WordPress sites, researching and architecting a next-gen POS system, to integrating third-party tools and customer apps. My focus is making tech at the car wash faster, more reliable, and easier to use.

Career Challenges: Getting my first official job as a developer was probably the hardest part. I really enjoy coding/programming in general, so self learning isn't an issue for me.

My Strengths: I don't know everything but I know a lot, and I'm generally a smart person, so I'm fairly confident I can solve a lot of tech problems (even non-tech issues). I'm a good listener, have good people skills, have a solid team-work mentality, crazy good work-ethic, stubborn in the sense that I like to finish what I start and do it well, and overall positive outlook on both people and life.

Favorite Tools: I like vanilla CSS, JavaScript, and Python (PHP is nice and quick now-a-days but the syntax and naming conventions throw me off at times). Frameworks are nice to work with, but I find the more I grasp basic technologies that it translates to a deeper understanding to those languages and programming overall. All that to say, I've recently (early 2024) come to love working with Tailwind CSS and React; and call me crazy but I'm coming around on WordPress as well.

Learning Motivation: I love to read, so getting into docs/books is quite the enjoyable experience for me. Also, I'm crazy competitive, so seeing developers who are better than me (there's quite a few, if I may add 😅) gets me fired-up to better myself. Not only that, but I love what I do - lucky me - so learning and programming serve as hobbies too. Sometimes you'll have to pry me away from a keyboard or remind me to eat!

Lifelong Goals: Travel the world (Tokyo's my #1 pick of places I want to see), raise my children to be the best people they can be (but most importantly, let them know they're loved no-matter what), be the best person I can be - in every aspect of my life, and show my wife that I love her as much as I can. Also would like to just slow-down at times.

Fun Fact: I like lifting weights regularly, occasionally playing some kind of Player-Vs-Player game (currently playing actual, IRL basketball with my kiddos), and watching football or anime's. My favorite music is late 90's/early 2000's R&B.