About Nathan Nicholas

My path into development started at home, not at work. Building and maintaining a self-hosted server taught me how systems behave under pressure, and solving my own infrastructure problems turned out to be good practice for solving other people's.

That foundation shaped how I approach professional work. I care about the parts people skip, like testing a backup by actually restoring it, or designing a database before it grows on its own. I've spent real time learning how these things work at a low level. Some of that is because it's fun (OK, it's kind of exciting), but mostly it's because skipping that work is where quality falls apart.

Most of my work comes down to connecting systems that were never designed to talk to each other, then making sure the result is locked down and easy to maintain. I'd rather it still work in two years than look good in a demo.

Outside of tech, I stay active in my community, make time for family and friends, and have a long list of books, movies, and TV shows I'm perpetually working through.