Hi, I’m Andrew. Welcome to my personal website! :)

I am a software developer with a background in mathematics who strives to leave the software industry a little better than how I found it. I particularly enjoy discussing practices and patterns that contribute to robust software, building tools that improve the developer experience, and brainstorming with others who share these passions.

On my blog, I primarily intend to share my ideas, opinions, and experiences related to building good software, but I may also sprinkle in some writings on math, philosophy, and anything else I end up ruminating on. This blog partly serves as an outlet for me to better formulate and understand my ideas, but I also hope that you will find some of these concepts useful or thought-provoking too. Thank you for visiting my corner of the internet!

More about me

Looking for my résumé? View it here.

I’ve always been intrigued by the unreasonable effectiveness and elegance of formal systems, which is why I primarily studied math and computer science while pursuing my undergraduate degree at Carleton College. Among my favorite classes from undergrad include Galois Theory, where I discovered how an abstruse field of mathematics proves it is impossible to physically trisect an angle with a compass and straightedge, and Theory of Computation, where I learned that an abstract model of computation potentially sets concrete limits on the capabilities of our brains! This idea of formal systems reaching out and putting a mark on reality is incredibly compelling to me, and it has continued to influence my academic and professional journey significantly.

I chose to pursue software development after college in part due to the prospect of catching a firsthand glimpse of this intersection between the formal and physical world, but also because it’s quite fun!

Shortly after graduation in 2019, I joined Optum as an associate software engineer for the Government Programs technology department. Within this department, I was fortunate enough to join the maiden team for the newly established “Dojo” program alongside two other new hires. The Government Programs Dojo program is an experimental incubator program for upskilling developers by placing them on greenfield projects and giving them the freedom to experiment with a modern enterprise tech stack. As a junior developer in the Dojo program, I seized the opportunity to design and implement critical components of multiple promising business initiatives, all while gaining practical experience in a wide variety of modern software development concepts, including DevOps, CI/CD, and microservices.

In January of 2021, I was promoted to software engineer and began to take on more formal leadership roles, culminating in the Digital Health at Home project. On this project, I co-led a team of six to develop two back-end systems for supporting Medicare members: one that allows members to request in-home test kits and another that provides them with up-to-date personal medical history and recommendations. As part of this role, I led the creation and refinement of the project backlogs and served as the team’s primary liaison with its product owners, scrum masters, and another third-party front-end development team. After just two months of dedicated development, the first of the two projects went live, marking the first-ever production deployment by a team led by Dojo program graduates.

In December of 2021, I decided after some introspection to leave Optum and take a break from enterprise software development, at least for a little while. Presently, I am still deciding what the next step in my professional journey will be. Stay tuned for updates!

Even more about me

In my spare time, I enjoy playing board games (especially Terraforming Mars), running, listening to podcasts, and watching old seasons of Survivor (no spoilers please!!).

Contact me

Thank you for reaching out!

My public email address is ‘hello’, concatenated with ‘@andrewtbiehl’, and finally ‘.email’.

You can also find me on GitHub or LinkedIn.

I look forward to hearing from you!