I've been writing software for more than 12 years, and depending on what you count as software, possibly 18 years. These have been everything from large desktop applications, frontend and backend of websites, and mobile apps. In that time, I've advocated for user experience, particularly in constrained development environments where self-consistency can be as important as the latest trends in UX. I've been an individual contributor, a tech lead, a mentor, and even the CTO of a startup, although in most cases, I think these are more a description of reality rather than any official title. Work has brought me to live in Canada, China, and California, and I can talk about cross-time, cross-cultural, and cross-language communication from personal experience. (It's harder than it sounds.)