Nick Palenchar is a creative in tech.
He grew up in the performing arts, but a number of early learn-to-code groups such as FreeCodeCamp, and eventually Fullstack Academy inspired him to code for a living. To date he has 8 years of experience working primarily on backend systems, and is currently at Atlassian.
Nick Palenchar is not on social media. He loves technology, but believes it best served as a tool for humans: to get things done, to share knowledge and—yes—connect with others (in the real world). But he is critical of the dark patterns employed by social media companies to profit off our content and addictive inclinations.
He is a Digital Minimalist, directly inspired by the works of Cal Newport. He is worried about addictive tech is creating a less empathetic and disconnected society.
Nick Palenchar sometimes works on personal tech projects. His current project is nickiscooking.com, a personal blog of recipes with no ads, trackers, or long-winded stories (and open to guest submissions). Out of this project, a recipe-forward markdown flavor is coming soon.
He also made open source contributions to Hoppscotch (A postman alternative) in the past, but is not currently a contributor. Most of Nick's coding efforts are dedicated to work, while in his free time prioritizes non-screen/creative activities to achieve balance between both modes of thinking.
Nick Palenchar plays piano and performs improv. (He used do both better). On stage, he tries to create organic moments, which he believes are always funny because humans are funny. Occasionally, he'll post a piano composition or arrangement to MuseScore.
Nick Palenchar values community building. He's been a volunteer organizer in NYC Pickleball, and currently runs a board game club.
Nick Palenchar is unsure if he is supposed to write in third-person on his site.