Engineering

Background

🧀 Hi!

My name is Joey. I’ve gone back and forth on Josef or Joe but it always comes back to Joey. I hail from the America’s Dairyland State of Wisconsin, where I enjoy spending time gardening, chicken-wrangling, golfing (a lot), baking naturally-leavened breads, and playing with our ever-growing assortment of pets. And, yes, tipping back a beer or three. I live here in Milwaukee with my girlfriend, Nikki.

I studied Computer Science and Theatre at the University of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, Washington. There, I benefitted greatly from the liberal arts philosophy of higher education, taking courses across both majors and in subject matter altogether outside of both. In that context, I learned adaptability and how to approach problem-solving from a variety of perspectives.

Before joining Fay as engineer #3, I had founded and worked for, respectively, two seed-stage startups. Before that, I worked at Amazon.com on the Cloud Drive and AWS WorkSpaces teams. I’ve built anything and everything up and down the stack, and the thing that has stuck with me the most is ensuring a user has the best experience possible.

My favorite meals

• American: growing up in Wisconsin, the fish fry is an institution you cannot escape. Give me a fillet of walleye and a side of sand dollars and I am a very happy man.
• Italian: I love to cook pasta (and to make pasta!). I have a few favorite recipes. One is a classic penne alla vodka. It’s hard to beat a vodka sauce. The other is a caramelized shallot pasta. This one is outrageously packed with flavor. A labor of love to slice down so many shallots, of course.
• Jewish: there’s a dish out there called matzoh brei, where some combination of egg and matzoh are pan-cooked/fried with a variety of seasonings, as a carby breakfast option. Everyone’s grandmother makes it differently, and I have come to love trying all the varieties (my grandmother’s is the best). It’s a vessel for salt and other flavors, and a delicious memory.
• Thanksgiving: I love to do the whole thing, all of it. It’s my favorite holiday to celebrate because I get to plan out and organize the whole thing (unless I’m sharing the load w/ my Mom like I am doing this year)
• Cheez-Its: I am an absolute addict and if there is a box within arms reach I will not be able to contain myself. But it has to be the original plain Cheez-Its.
• I like to try everything and anything, just summarizing a few favorites just can’t cover it!

What I’ve been learning about lately

• I’ve been working on my woodworking skills a lot — we’re building a built-in shelf system to our living room wall to contain plants, the TV, and books. I’ve been slowly acquiring more and more power tools and skills, and am enjoying opportunities to practice them.
• A lot of my practice/learning energy goes into golf 🤓 — it’s a game of lifelong learning and keeping a beginner’s mindset helps immensely. I’ve been enjoying practicing and improving my own game as well as coaching youth golf with the First Tee of Southeast Wisconsin
• I am still very bad at it but I know the basic ins and outs of knitting and am slowly working on a blanket project panel-by-panel!

Get to know me a little better