Meet a Member: Geoff Maxey

Geoff Maxey

Geoff Maxey knew a couple of people who were members of theClubhou.se, and following a few events hosted in the space, he decided to join up as it afforded him a kind of second office and the opportunity to network with local tech and small business folks. Connections and community have been pivotal to Geoff’s progression through Development.

Many years ago, Geoff was plugging away at the rock and roll lifestyle in Columbia, SC, spending some time playing in bands and cooking in kitchens. Careerwise, Geoff was on a culinary track, though he had dabbled in computers. With an eye on moving to north Texas, Geoff relocated to Augusta on a whim in 2006 before heading west. He found he liked the area and never made it to Texas.

Having continued with similar work in Augusta, Geoff was looking for something new around 2008 and chatting with friends. He inquired if they knew of any jobs at Morris Digitalworks, where they worked. Seizing an opportunity, Geoff started out as a developer intern with Morris Digitalworks. Geoff enjoyed the work in development, and the positive experience of the teams solidified that this was something he would like to do for the foreseeable future. Geoff continued with MDW for over three years, working his way through successive roles on the development team.

Currently Geoff is a Senior Technical Account Manager at Acquia, a Boston-based company founded by one of the creators of Drupal. “My role is pretty much a cross between account management and technical consultant,” explained Geoff. He elaborated, “I work with various clients with large scale enterprise applications ranging from the Olympics, Nasdaq, and a handful of federal agencies. I review and consult on everything from the hardware architecture to the web applications and everything in between to make sure they are performant, scalable, and secure.”

Aside from large scale architectures, Geoff is a huge advocate for the Drupal CMS. “I love to teach how developers and agencies can really take advantage of its flexibility,” he says. Additionally, “the opportunities it affords developers to get in and contribute with open source communities,” which Drupal provides.

After joining theClubhou.se. Geoff became involved as a regular contributor to Augusta Developer, the monthly club meeting at theClubhou.se for development of all types. Considering everything he has worked on, he’s definitely exemplified theClubhou.se Core Value of Give More Than You Take. He commented to this with, “Whether it be charity or knowledge sharing or what have you, I always feel that everyone grows and benefits together when we all contribute together.” For himself and fellow developers, Geoff encourages everyone to continue to collaborate and share insight, “Especially the younger and newcomer developers,” says Geoff, “as that’s really one of the best ways to learn and grow.”

Speaking to his involvement with Augusta Developer, “Whether it be charity or knowledge sharing or what have you, I always feel that everyone grows and benefits together when we all contribute together.”

Thinking about ways to ensure folks new to development can make the necessary progress to kick off a career in dev, Geoff explained the need of a mentorship program, “where some of the more experienced devs can work with the younger and newcomer devs to share experience and help them get their footing, get support, and help define their career paths as they enter the market.” In Augusta, Geoff sees, “an amazing pool of technical talent.” He would love to see some more webdev firms & agencies open up shop and reach beyond the local market to compete nationally. “Honestly, I've got a few ideas I wouldn't mind tossing around with the right people,” says Geoff with a wink.

Geoff shared that as he sees it, in the tech world and life, there is never one solution and it’s important to be well-rounded. “Being flexible for a project is super beneficial.” The variety of the work is what has kept Geoff interested over the years, “I like to work with different kinds of projects.” Recently, Geoff has been studying and playing with Kubernetes and the like to gain proficiency with managing and hosting containerized applications. Venturing from software, Geoff also tinkers with developing hardware synthesizer arrangements. Check out his Soundcloud!