Nick Willett-Jeffries

Hi! I'm Nick, but many people refer to me as NWJ (my initials), both online and in meatspace.

I've worked as a software engineer and engineering manager for over ten years, mostly at Braze. I was an early engineering hire there,^{1 1} Depending how you count, I was roughly Braze's seventh or eighth engineer. and eventually ended up managing a group of about fifty engineers across five teams. Professionally, I've mostly focused on web development and distributed systems work, but I've also dabbled in a few other technical domains on the side.

Looking further back, my path into software engineering was somewhat circuitous and meandering. In college, at Swarthmore, I studied history and philosophy. And my first job post-graduation was as a policy analyst, working for former New York State Budget Director, Paul Francis.

Outside of work, I read,^{2 2} See the Library for some favorites. play games, run and lift, cook, and bake bread. I am originally from the suburbs of NYC, and now live in Manhattan with my wife, Janie.