Today I’m joining Codecademy as Lead Designer

A few months after my move to San Francisco, I decided to leave Carsonified—wonderful folks, but the logistics weren’t playing. Since the departure, I’ve been on the hunt for a juicy new project; chatting with some of my favorite Bay Area companies about possibly working together. Just as I was finally prepared to commit, Bleikamp sent me this link. It was a Codecademy job posting.

“Lead UI/UX would be awesome there, Bouncy.”

Bleikamp calls me “Bouncy House”—or “Bouncy” for short—because I’m prone to animated fits of enthusiasm. I had a few as I worked through the Codecademy lessons.

“I’m, like, a laughably good match for this,” I told him. It’s true. I’m crazy about designing better educational experiences. I’ve worked on exactly that as an interface designer and as an instructor in university classrooms. “I’m going to email them. I’m jazzed.”

What followed was an incredibly fun talk with Codecademy co-founders Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski over Skype—they’re smart, easygoing, hilarious, and we found a lot of overlap in our ideas.

Here’s the beautiful entrance to the Wiliamsburg Bri—NOPE. BUBINSKIED.

The company is actually located in NYC (not SF, as I had originally thought), so I took a trip to meet the guys in person. They were spectacular hosts, and we had a crazy-good time working together and hanging out. By the last day, I was bummed to have to leave.

To speed along to the conclusion—we decided to make it a thing. I’m back in NYC and it’s my first official day as Codecademy’s Lead Designer!