Title: Developer
Joined Arc90 in: April 2008
Most people don’t know that: I’m self-taught and didn’t go to college.
In early 2008, Doug Burns was living and job hunting in Washington D.C. After seeing an Arc90 job posting on 37signals, he made his way to the company’s site and encountered a familiar name. Developer Javier Julio had posted an announcement to the Arc90 blog for cfDrinks, an event organized by Adam Lehman, the ColdFusion Product Manager. Lehman also happened to be one of Doug’s former co-workers.
The blog post increased Doug’s interest in Arc90 since it showed that the employees were adamant about incorporating technology into their personal lives.
“I read through the blog posts on the website and I could tell that the people at Arc90 were really passionate about technology,” Doug said. “It goes beyond just a job; it’s something they do for enjoyment. That’s how I have always felt about it and I was excited about the opportunity to work with people who felt the same way.”
A few months later, Doug, his wife Courtney and their dog, Sascha, packed up a U-Haul and drove it from Washington D.C.’s DuPont Circle to Brooklyn. Doug grew up in Washingtonville, NY and was excited to move closer to his roots.
“I’ve always wanted to live in New York City,” Doug noted. “I lived up and down the East Coast and I love living in a city. New York is as big as you can get in the United States.”
Doug’s initial interest in computers sparked when he was still in high school and upgraded from the family’s Commodore 64 to his own Mac LC III.
“In 1992, Macs weren’t what they are today,” Doug said. “I really loved the original Mac OS. When Apple decided to abandon it for NeXTSTEP, I have to admit I was a little worried. Obviously, my worries were completely unfounded since they took a great thing and made it much, much better.”
Doug’s formal introduction to the world of technology, however, came while he lived in Tampa. He worked at a print shop and had the opportunity to expand his design skills.
“The Web was starting to get big and the company had a website,” he recalled. “I started designing the site using PHP and built an E-commerce system.”
The flexibility of the position allowed Doug to add to his skill sets.
“I transitioned that whole time, from design to development,” he said. “I loved it because the problem solving aspect is addictive. There is always a thrill of seeing the thing you made.”
Doug experienced the exhilaration firsthand while working on an automated engraving technique.
“The print shop made engraved pencils,” he said. “They used to hire people to come in and type the names onto the pencils. It was amazing the first time I saw this machine, with its arm coming down to engrave the pencils. The code that I wrote was actually causing some physical action to happen.”
On the other hand, the technological advances had some unanticipated side effects.
“When we automated the pencil engraving via the Web, 30 people lost their jobs,” he recalled.
From the print shop in Tampa, Doug relocated to Washington, D.C. He worked at the U.S. Department of State for seven years as an internal consultant before starting his own business. In 2007, Doug founded Travelworks Technologies, a Web travel reservation system which allowed users to build a trip while talking to an international reservation system. He created the prototype and also funded the project.
“Travelworks Technologies became too much; having to do everything was overwhelming,” Doug said. “I was doing development, marketing, sales, and system’s administration. I am a perfectionist so everything had to be perfect and there was no one to help me control myself.”
He also found that running a company was lonely at times; he eventually closed Travelworks Technologies and returned to the job market.
“I missed talking to other people about work stuff,” he said.
At Arc90, Doug has numerous outlets for conversations about programming languages or the latest social networking trends.
“I’ve never worked with people who are completely on the same wave length as I am but it’s that way here,” he said. “Anywhere else, I would be a superstar. At Arc90, everybody is a superstar and they understand what you’re talking about. As far as quality and ideas, they are starting at a much higher level here, especially when people are collaborating.”
One of Doug’s most memorable experiences at Arc90 was watching Readability take off.
“After Rich’s initial blog post, Readability was all over the Internet in a few hours and the buzz continued for weeks,” Doug said. “It kind of reminded me of the Dot-com era UPS ad where immediately after a new online store went online, orders started piling in. These things happen often on the Internet, but this was the first time that I was on this side of it.”