Interview Part 1 of 2 with Matt Makai

Why travel across the United States for four months? For Washington DC resident and software developer Matt Makai the answer was simple. With shades of Brad Feld’s Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City, Matt explains the decision in his first blog post. He declares, “I want to gain a greater understanding of tech culture across the US.” Last April I had the privilege to meet and host Matt in San Diego, a third of the way through his 30-city journey. Almost one year after starting his Coding Across America trip, I recently caught up with Matt to revisit his learning experiences and how he applies them today.

About Matt Makai

Matt codes a lot – at least 45 hours a week, not counting the time spent reading, writing, and speaking about software development. Lately, he has been building and deploying web applications on a Python-based Linux, Nginx, Green Unicorn, PostgreSQL stack. He created Full Stack Python (http://www.fullstackpython.com/) to help junior Python developers understand every layer of the web application stack they’ll need to use to put their applications on the web.

For very technical subjects, he write posts on his personal blog. For general software opinion writing, interviews with software developers & data scientists, and photos from traveling check out Coding Across America.

Matt is currently a Developer Evangelist for Twilio.

Connect with Matt: LinkedIn, GitHub, Twitter