Created: June 5, 2026
Six months ago I closed out 21 years at Target and went looking for what was next. I found it at Clerk, building user management through data, learning a ton, and having a lot of fun with a great team.
Six months ago I wrote that I was closing a 21-year chapter and looking for what was next. I said I wanted a role where I could help shape a technical roadmap, solve complex problems, and contribute to an outstanding team. I found that team at Clerk, and I have been there since December as a Senior Software Engineer.
There is a small plot twist in that sentence, and it is the part I have enjoyed thinking about most.
Back to the keyboard
Even at Target I kept my hands on the code, just less of the time. I wore a lot of hats there, juggling architecture, leadership, and mentoring all at once: setting direction, designing platforms, and growing engineers into the people who would run them. I loved that work, and I would do it again. But somewhere in the search I realized how much I wanted to be back in the code more of the day, in the tight loop of a failing test, a fix, a green build, and a thing that is measurably better than it was an hour ago.
When Clerk reached out, the interview process quickly became a two-way conversation, each of us getting to know the other, and I came away impressed at every step: the people, the engineering culture, and the clarity of where the product is headed. Once it was clear we would be a good fit, I enthusiastically joined the team. Clerk is well known for authentication, and it is growing into the leading authentication & user management platform. The part I get to own is user management through data: turning raw activity into a trustworthy, real-time view of who your users and organizations are and what they are doing. I am writing production code every day again, and I have found that the years of architecture make the hands-on work better, while the hands-on work keeps my architectural instincts honest.
A steep learning curve, and a lot of fun
I will be honest: the first few months were a real learning curve. Clerk moves quickly, parts of the stack were new to me, and there was a lot to absorb about the product, the codebase, and how the team works. It was humbling in the best way, the kind of stretch that reminds you why you got into this in the first place. And we managed to have a good time doing it.
Clerk is a worldwide, remote-first company, so in January my whole team, along with a few of our leaders, gathered for our first offsite together in the Canary Islands, Spain. We call these gatherings clerkshops, our spin on a workshop: the team comes together in one place to focus on a specific set of deliverables and get some good social time in along the way. Meeting in person the people I had only known through pull requests and video calls was the highlight of those early months. We worked, we explored, and I came home genuinely energized about the team I get to build alongside. I like these people, and I like the problems we are solving together.
Day to day, the setup suits me well. I am fully remote with flexible hours, which means I can do focused work when I am at my sharpest and still be present for my family. That trust to own my schedule has made me both happier and more productive, and it is a big part of why this chapter has been so good.
What's next
I am keeping this blog going as I go, with a mix of career reflections like this one and the occasional technical write-up on the data, reliability, and edge problems I spend my days in. If any of that resonates with what your team is working on, I would love to compare notes.