Chad Pytel
Founder and CEO
Chad Pytel has twelve years of experience in tech support and software services, and is a skilled programmer and project manager. Chad is responsible for the day-to-day operations of thoughtbot — and acts in an ongoing project lead role for many of our clients. He released a book, published by Apress, titled Pro ActiveRecord for Ruby: Databases with Ruby and Rails. Chad graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) with bachelor of science degrees in both Computer Science and Humanities & Arts (Drama/Theatre).
Jon Yurek
Founder and CTO
Jon Yurek is an experienced programmer with proven problem solving skills and the tenacity to attack complex problems head-on. Jon is responsible for the technical aspects of the software development process within the company. He coauthored a book, published by Apress, titled Pro ActiveRecord for Ruby: Databases with Ruby and Rails. Jon graduated from WPI with a B.S. degree in Computer Science.
Matt Jankowski
COO
Matt Jankowski has more than a decade of experiencing working as a builder, planner and manager in the realm of web application development — and serves as the business lead for many of thoughtbot's clients, while managing our New York City office. Matt has experience in the software side of the high throughput computing, entertainment technology, and publishing industries. Matt holds a B.S. in Technical Communication from WPI.
Dan Croak
Web Developer
Dan likes building web apps for small businesses in Boston. He aims to make users happy with less code.
Kevin Burg
Design Director
Kevin is an experienced New York City web designer with a focus on a user interface driven approach that combines strong visuals and ease of use. After discovering computer based design early in life he went on to study traditional fine art as well as print design before uncovering a passion for interactive media. Kevin’s tumblr is updated on a regular basis.
Mike Burns
Web Developer
Mike Burns has been a Web developer since before the first bubble burst. He co-founded the Boston Android hackfests and uses Haskell for fun projects.
Joe Ferris
Web Developer
Joe found home at thoughtbot after spending several years on the freelance and consulting battlefield. He has been coding since he first laid eyes on a computer, and has been a Ruby enthusiast since he discovered Rails in 2005. In his spare time, he plays guitar and frisbee. Joe is an avid 3-letter acronym hater.
Jason Morrison
Web Developer
Jason started programming when he exhausted his family’s collection of Commodore 64 games at the tender age of six, and has been going strong ever since. He believes in empowering people by making light, flexible, open source tools available in science and technology. Jason graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2007 with a B.S. in Computer Science. He loves ultimate frisbee, meeting people with ambition, and delicious Tex-Mex.
Fred Yates
Web Designer
Fred has been involved in design for the better part of a decade and prefers to let his work speak for itself. Always considering his design more of a passion than a job, he believes anyone with a good sense of humor, a keen attention to the details, and the aforementioned passion can create beautiful things. He updates his dribbble and twitter accounts more often than his portfolio — so check those to see what he's doing.
Tristan Dunn
Web Developer
A web developer for half of his life, he believes less is better in life and online.
Josh Clayton
Web Developer
After spending years writing ASP and C#, Josh found solace in Ruby and realized that crying while programming was OK (as long as they were tears of joy). When he's not programming, he enjoys biking and playing drums.
Nick Quaranto
Web Developer
Nick is a firm believer in open source software, a proud member of Ruby community, and has been doing web development for as long as he can remember. He cut his teeth on classic ASP and ASP.NET at first, but discovered Ruby on Rails through his university and dove in head first. Nick pretends he's a bassist with famous prog rock bands when not coding.
Kyle Fiedler
Web Designer
Kyle has been designing and developing, in some form, since the turn of the century. His roots reach back to fine arts and print design but once he started designing for the web he never turned back. Kyle maintains a unique blog in which each post gets its own design to enhance his writing.
Chad Mazzola
Web Designer
Chad started making websites when it was mostly spacer gifs over dial-up connections. He likes philosophizing about design almost as much as actually designing. You should follow him on twitter.
Harold Giménez
Web Developer
With roots in electrical engineering, Harold always had a fascination for software and a passion for open source. He believes that at the heart of making the right decisions is data. He strives to find better ways to visualize and understand data in order to find useful information, and tries to incorporate that into his work and life. He enjoys playing blues on his acoustic guitar.
Emma Lindsay
Developer Intern
Emma graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science 2007, and was drawn to Ruby out of an appreciation of the elegance of the blend of functional and object oriented programming styles. She came to thoughtbot with the intention of improving her more practical software engineering abilities, and to meet some cool people to work with. One of her life goals is to snowboard down the whistler bowl without falling.
Matt Mongeau
Web Developer
Matt started programming in Qbasic and worked his way up to programming Ruby. Matt also enjoys folding origami and dabbling in other programming languages.
Phil LaPier
Web Designer
Phil has been designing since the days when table based layouts were the norm, when Photoshop first hit the market, and FrontPage was an acceptable go-to WYSIWYG editor. With an approach to UI design that entails a user-centered design philosophy at it’s core, he strives to combine theory with practice by creating a trail of beautifully precise pixels wherever he goes. A sharply dressed swagger of a fellow, Phil graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2009 with a B.S. in Graphic Design. Check him out on the web for more insight.
Matthias Schmidt
Developer Intern
Matthias started making websites with awesome WYSIWYG editors back in the day when he was still riding a 12" three wheeler. He went a long way through the good old PHP/MySQL combo until he learnt about Ruby and Rails about a year ago. Fascinated by the new language and framework he decided to dive deeper into this new, fresh world and ended up at thoughtbot to improve his knowledge in this area. In his spare time, Matthias likes to snowboard down the alps and enjoy some Weißbier with banana juice. If you feel like it, you can follow him on twitter or read his blog.
Ralph
Chief Evangelist
Ralph has been with thoughtbot since late 2003. He does not hold any formal educational degrees, but he’s a very courteous host and is well respected in the Boston robot community (we think). In his spare time, Ralph is an avid drummer and technical manual enthusiast.
Photography by Jamie Beck
