NodeBB is Growing!

In these extraordinary times, our Toronto-based office is still closed, and everybody is working from home. We’ve no choice but to pursue remote-first positions, though this is not necessarily a big change as many of us already do primarily work from home. Whether it’s feeding the baby during the scrums, or taking a power nap just before a launch, we had already adopted the telecommuting skills necessary to keep up with today’s ever-changing world.

Coronavirus has emphasized the importance of social platforms once again, and our responsibility to deliver exceptional service has grown along with it. We realized we needed additional support to help us stay on track. So today, we are very proud to announce that the NodeBB team is growing! Please join us in welcoming our new rockstars Trevor, Isabelle, Sam and Nick, who will be contributing to several ongoing projects.

TREVOR WILLIAMS

We met Trevor in the early days of NodeBB when we needed his creative skills for the development of our website. When he saw our website’s simple layout at the time, his initial thought was that it was “absolutely horrible :)”. After a few hours of brainstorming, he took a shot at redesigning the forum for his personal community/hobby site and showcasing what NodeBB could actually look like. We were so pleased with his professionalism and enthusiasm, we immediately wanted to work with him again on our new website launch. He is currently transforming the old design into a bright, modern look; so stay tuned for more on this!

ISABELLE FISCHER

Isabelle also had her magic touch on some of our projects in the past. She is joining the NodeBB team as a digital artist who is an Illustration student working with Procreate on iPad as well as Adobe products such as Illustrator and Photoshop. Among her likes is to design clothing and characters, especially when it is inspired from nature. As a neat and organized person, she dislikes messy, cluttered rooms.

SAMUEL THOMPSON

Sam is joining us as a developer who will be fixing bugs, resolving clients tickets, and improving NodeBB. He has worked for Autodesk, IBM, NodeSource, and Particle.io. He has volunteered at phpBB, a no-kill animal shelter, and served as a director on the board of a nonprofit makerspace. He used to teach Python and Arduino in the past but now he designs and sells Raspberry Pi HATs^[1]. He plays the piano, guitar, and violin and can also speak 3 languages: native in English and proficient in German and French. He is a cat person who likes biking, making (desktop fabrication, electronics, woodworking, metalworking), traveling and Jigsaw puzzles. Despite the fact that he lives in Sacramento and enjoys woodworking, extreme hot weather and loud noises are the two things he finds the most unpleasant.

NICHOLAS WEINER

Nick is a high school orchestra director from Louisville, Kentucky. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Louisville and is currently a graduate student at the University of Kentucky in Educational Leadership. He is passionate about forums and online communities, valueing the people who use them over the procedures that guide them. He is a firm believer in educational research as a means to empower the future of community administration and moderation. He will be applying his skills as an Advisory Specialist to ensure Quality Assurance is prioritized and achieved in all our projects. In his free time, Nick enjoys performing music and playing disc golf with his wife, Stephanie.

In addition to our new members, Tim, Peter and Anil have also been on this amazing journey with us since the beginning; so special thanks to all of them for their invaluable contributions! We realized that we hadn’t done any profiles on them, but it’s better late than never!

TIMOTHY FIKE aka yariplus

Tim first learned about NodeBB when their gaming community was looking for a new forum software that was open and extendable, while embracing new technologies like Node.js and NoSQL. While setting up their new site, he frequently posted on our community forum, and eventually started contributing by helping new users, creating plugins, and even sending pull requests on GitHub. He is a cyber security engineer by day, primarily focused on Splunk. He loves cats, and has two adorable kittens, Sam and Max! He enjoys board games, tabletop role-playing games, arts and crafts, and woodworking.

PETER JASZKOWIAK aka pitaj

Peter has a BSc degree in Electrical Engineering and currently works in the semiconductor industry. His favorite programming languages are Rust and TypeScript. Not counting our three creator devs Julian, Baris and Andrew, Peter holds the first place as the top contributor to NodeBB with 313 commits. He loves pizza, and his favorite ice cream flavor is pistachio.

ANIL MANDEPUDI aka pichalite

Anil is a programmer primarily working on database application development using Oracle developer tools. Whenever he gets a chance, he tries to learn and contribute to open source tools and applications. Also being one of the top contributors, he has been shaping NodeBB in many ways since 2014: writing plugins, creating new themes, and sharing his expertise with other members on our community forum.

^{Cover Photo} My Life Through A Lens on Unsplash