Brandon Varner
🌚 Hello! Welcome to my site.
Software Developer and Communications Expert
📜 Get to Know Me
I'm a Chicago resident who grew up in Alabama, where I worked in news, communications, and even school bus driving before learning to code.
I learned React.js, Node.js, MySQL, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the Innovate Bham coding bootcamp. Since then, I've earned professional experience in React Native, Google Firebase, and Next.js. This site is built with three.js and Vite.
I've recently completed a highly competitive Software Development Apprenticeship at the University of Illinois's Discovery Partners Institute. We studied Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, SQLite, JavaScript, and more during this program.
I'm also working on Georgia Tech's Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming with Java certificate program.
I'm currently available for contract work and full-time employment! I'm most interested in coding roles, but I'd love to offer comms solutions as well. Technical writer roles, customer success roles, I'm happy to do anything on my path to development.
📂 Projects
Click the photos below to view each project.
Bordu
A kanban designed for non-technical people! It takes in emails from users and provides updates on tasks. Built with Ruby on Rails with Bootstrap and some front-end JavaScript.
Next.js Blog
A blog built in Next.js with Tailwind CSS. Data served from a local api, and authors randomized for each article.
React Bootstrap Weather App
A weather app built with React and Bootstrap, pulls weather data for the first matching city from the Openweather API.
Spotify Clone
A small Spotify clone with streaming music sourced from the Internet Archive. Built in React Native with TypeScript and a GraphQL API on AWS Amplify.
💾 Selected Work History
Software Engineering Apprentice
Discovery Partners Institute
May 2024 - August 2024
● Rediscovered SQL skills while learning Rails and more in this entrepreneurial program.
● Helped colleagues acquire the necessary skills to pass the program's rigorous curriculum.
Software Engineer
BUZD
February 2022 - September 2022
● Combined knowledge of several frameworks and APIs to help this start-up succeed, including React Native, Firebase, Mailgun, Next.js, and more.
● Helped build a customer-facing mobile app, a mobile app for delivery drivers, and a web app for the administrative side of the business.
Communications Manager
Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc.
June 2018 - June 2019
● Worked in tandem with our Communications Director on projects such as press releases, general research and writing articles for the site as well as opposition research
● Co-managed organizational messaging efforts, which included drafting and delivering emails to tens of thousands of subscribers through our internal system and providing light graphic design work
● Managed the organization’s social media and social media advertisements, generating copy and answering questions from the public submitted via Facebook Messenger
Thanks for visiting!
Email me: info at bvarner.dev