About
My name is Melissa but everyone has called me Missy since I was a little kid. Growing up, I always had a desire to create and share things, whether it be something as simple as drawing a picture or playing a new song that I learned on the guitar. This need to share my creativity with the people around me led me to finding different ways to express my thoughts and ideas. Playing video games with my big brother definitely made me the tech-savvy person that I am today. As a matter of fact, the beginning of my coding experience started with me playing an online game called Neopets, where you could customize the look of your “pet pages” with HTML and CSS. I know, lame right? Give me a break, I was 10 years old.
I became obsessed with creating something that was highly technical and challenging to “decode” for the lack of a better word, and it amazed me that the otherwise foreign symbols I was using was actually working! The biggest satisfaction out of the projects that I create is seeing them work in real life.
Because of my love for visual design and the digital world, I decided to major in Graphic Design at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, FL. One month after graduation, I landed a job in a creative agency — OGK Creative — as a Jr. Front-end Web Developer because of my desire and proven capability to learn.
After about a year into the job, I crafted a development process that not only makes sense for developers but also made sense for designers, and with that I was able to please both parties and increase efficiencies. When my manager left the company, I had the rare opportunity to step up and take charge of the development team using the skills that I have collected in customer service & retail management and applied my newly learned skills of high-end custom development. In no time, I started running the show, hiring, onboarding, and managing new employees, communicating with clients and members of other departments, and establishing a concrete process as tasks and projects get sent to development.
Since I have a strong background in design and a knowledge of web development, I am able to assist the design team in creating user experiences that not only look great but function beautifully as well.
With my Swiss-army-knife set of skills, I am equipped and well-prepared to learn new aspects and angles of design as it relates to technology, interaction, and most importantly the user.