I’m Jimmy Smutek
I’m a web developer, musician, and general tech nerd from Baltimore, Maryland. I’m a dad, a husband, and a late life diagnosed autistic. My interests include computers, computer programming, info-sec, digital art, and electronic music production.
I’ve studied Computer Graphics and Visual Communication at Community College of Baltimore County, Marketing and Corporate Communication at the University of Baltimore, and Software Development and Security at the University of Maryland.
My professional background began in graphics design, and I was able to gain a broad creative and technical foundation while working as a work-study, part-time for the Baltimore nonprofit, Baltimore Art & Music Project where I worked closely with the Director to create print branding and web collateral for local grassroots arts & music events. My love of learning and technology eventually led me into tinkering with websites and then into full-time web development.
My professional experience includes working at Ainsley & Co., as a Web Developer and as Lead Web Developer and at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health as a Lead Web Developer and a Senior Programmer Analyst. My career ended in 2020 when I had an extreme manic episode after spending too much time in a toxic work environment where I was gaslit and harrassed by my teammate and my manager. I’ve been disabled and unable to work since. I have a lot of challenges now and I miss my career but I’ve been making progress and I am hoping to get back to working on the web soon.
I like to make electronic music with my drum machines and synths, and I’m a tech and computer nerd in general so I enjoy learning about programming, information security, and operating systems as a hobby. I’m a Mac user but I also nerd out a lot on various flavors of Linux. Python is my favorite language but I can also program with PHP and JavaScript.
This is my web development blog. I also have my personal blog at smutek.blog if you’d like to check it out.