Hi, my name is Kyle Hotchkiss.
When I was in college, all I wanted was to graduate and find a humble software job somewhere in southwest Virginia.
Instead, I skipped finishing college and was hired as the first employee at what’s grown to be an successful web development studio where I’ve worked on everything from a processing orders for soccer balls for a World Cup arts project, a real-time map infographic that was on display in Times Square, an advocacy project for Ebola eradication, the forms processing backend for one of the 2020 presidential candidates, the paywall for a popular American publication, and the first version of a tool to calculate the financial benefits/incentives of electrifying your home (the White House even shared a link to it!). My work is primarily Javascript. I’ve worked there for over a decade now.
In my personal life, I got as far away as I could from Virginia, even spending 3 years living in India (during the covid era), tried starting a NGO with some friends (fail), found a home and settled in San Diego, became passionate about photography (enough to once exhibit my work to an audience including my cities mayor!) I’ve taken trains up, down, and across the country. One time my college hobby project made Hackaday.
My current interests include slowly trying to learn microbiology, exploring my love for south asia, and trying to figure out how to tie all these tangents together. I almost lost a loved one to an infectious disease before and every day it runs across my mind, what can I do to help prevent one more person from having to go through that? I enjoy taking my 4Runner out to explore Californias incredible geography. I gave up on church back in 2016 because of the whole election thing. I’m trying to bite my tongue, remember where I came from, and take my faith more seriously nowadays. It’s going better than I anticipated. I hope to get a chance to visit all 7 continents and see Everest up close.
My life didn’t turn out how I expected it to (and I’m happy it didn’t).
If you want to say hi, my email is kyle at this domain. Thank you for letting me share my story.