Title: Developer
Joined Arc90 in: August 2008
My most prized possession: My bag. I’ve had it since high school.
While growing up in Redmond, WA-the home of Microsoft Corp-it was almost impossible for Michael Rehse to avoid pursuing a career in technology. Many of the people around him, including family members and even the next door neighbor, were immersed in different programming languages. His dad, a consultant for technology companies, even studied Fortran as a foreign language at Ohio University. Michael doubts that this classification would hold water in today’s world.
“You can’t really call it a ‘conversation’ since computers are deterministic automatons,” Michael said. “Programming languages have many of the same characteristics as regular spoken languages, but they are fundamentally different because they are used only as commands; they are not used to speak to a sentient being.”
As a child, Michael experimented with a 286 computer with Windows 2.0; his family eventually upgraded to a 486 with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. The computer had QBasic as a default, and when he was in third grade, Michael learned to program in QBasic from his dad.
“I made an application that would calculate how many toothpicks you could get out of a tree,” he recalled. “I remember having problems with floating point numbers. At that point, I didn’t know what scientific notion was.”
Growing up near Microsoft’s headquarters had its share of local celebrities. The Rehse’s neighbor, Jeff Alger, worked for Microsoft Corp and wrote Secrets of the C+++ Masters.
“That book used really advanced concepts that I still struggle with today,” Michael said. “Though luckily they’re things that I may never have to worry about, since they deal mostly with pointer arithmetic and memory allocation. We never really have to use that these days . . . most of it is handled by the operating system or the language on the backend.”
Michael expanded his skill sets by teaching himself Visual Basic, along with C and C++. After taking an Advanced Placement Computer Science class during his senior year of high school, Michael decided technology could be his career path. He interned at Microsoft the summer before he left for college.
“I had a great time at Microsoft,” Michael said. “There were really great, smart people there and it taught me a lot about the software process. They are a development centric company and they like to create new things that do lots of stuff. They don’t like adhering to standards, since they find them limiting. It just makes it really hard to interface with anything else and it makes it really hard to design a good interface. I guess that’s what stems from being a really development centric company.”
Michael attended Harvey Mudd College, where he majored in Computer Science. He decided on the Claremont, CA school for its proximity to the entertainment industry, as acting had become another passion.
“My first love is acting, but I also happened to be pretty good with computers so I decided to pursue a Computer Science degree,” he said.
After three semesters in California, Michael eventually returned home to reconsider his career options. He attended a community college and then decided to move to the East Coast.
“My Dad visited back before New York City was cleaned up,” Michael recalled. “I was a little nervous about all the crime that he told me was rampant because, at the time, you did not ride the subways.”
Once he arrived in New York City, Michael followed his career goals, earning a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Pace University while pursuing his acting dreams.
“There are two primary acting markets in the United States-Los Angeles and New York,” Michael said. “I’d heard that New York was the best place to train since there is so much theater. You can get away with a lot more in film. If you are New York City trained, and respected in the community, then you could pretty much get an acting job anywhere.”
When Michael started at Arc90 during the summer of 2008, he experienced a bit of a culture shock in his new work environment. He temporarily sat at a small desk, facing a pillar and directly below an acoustic guitar; on some days, his co-workers threatened to shoot him with a rocket launcher.
“It really wasn’t what I expected,” Michael recalled. “I got here and I started reading about REST.”
His first reading assignment included RESTful Web Services, by Leonard Richardson and Sam Ruby. Michael had previously crossed paths with Richardson as he was writing the book; the author had explained the concept firsthand.
“The book that he was writing is Arc90’s REST bible,” Michael said. “He was also writing O’Reilly books about something that I didn’t really know-RESTful web services. He was the first one to explain them to me.”
Michael learned more than RESTful services at Arc90, though. He appreciates the opportunity to focus on design instead of just concentrating on code.
“I love the fact that we get into long debates about the right way to do things and we spend a lot of time designing code, instead of just writing code,” he said.
During an office competition to complete the statement, “____ is 99% ____ and 1% ___,” Michael won with his submission.
“If you don’t design your code first and how it will interact with other systems and itself, you will end up with a horrible mess,” Michael commented. “It takes a lot of time but you’re going to spend that time maintaining and fixing bugs.”
When he’s not programming, Michael can be found performing with the ThinkPound sketch comedy troupe; he’s been a member of the group for three years.
“I have always loved comedy,” Michael said. “My favorite actors were Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. That’s what I wanted to do as an actor-I wanted to make people laugh.”
As a child, Michael made it through several agency cuts during casting for the role of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars (Episode I). He admits to being a Trekkie and would have jumped at the opportunity to meet its creator, Gene Roddenberry.
“I would love to talk to him about the philosophy of Star Trek,” Michael said. “Star Trek has had a huge impact on my life. Everything I’ve learned in life, I know through Star Trek, including the way that they relate to the universe and how they show a better future.”
With the reemergence of the Star Trek movies, Michael still hopes to make his way to the big screen.
“Now that there’s a new franchise, maybe I’ll be able to build enough star capital,” Michael said. “But I would keep working remotely for Arc90.”