About Micah
I'm a full stack developer based in Philadelphia. I graduated from Lehigh University's P.C. Rossin College of Engineering in 2024 with a B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering, but most of what I know came from trial, error, and research working in the field for several years now.
Right now I'm at a fintech company where I work across the entire stack—Java and TypeScript on a platform used by 350+ institutional clients. I like the kind of work where you inherit something legacy and leave it modern, or where you're at liberty to plan the system architecture from scratch. My side project, eSentry, came from similar motivation: I wanted real-time eBay monitoring and nothing out there did what I needed, so I built it myself with Next.js, Redis, and Docker.
I like to believe I catch the small things most people scroll past—a component that's very slightly off, a race condition that hasn't shown itself yet, or a deprecated API call. I genuinely care about the details, and I'd rather ship something I have confidence in than something that just passes unit tests.
Origami
When I was 12, I found a Japanese origami book my mom had brought back from a trip to Japan 15 years prior. The diagrams made little sense at first, but after some time in the book's legend I taught myself the basics. What keeps me coming back is that there's no ceiling—just increasingly complex models that force you to be more precise and more patient than the last one. Right now I'm teaching myself to fold models from crease patterns alone, which is essentially reverse-engineering an entire model from the creases laid out in one image. In the origami world, it's considered another level of mastery.
Ancient Dragon by Satoshi Kamiya
Blakiston's Fish Owl by Kyohei Katsuta
At its core, I believe origami and SWE scratch the same part of my brain. Both come down to working through something complex one step at a time, staying precise, and knowing when to step away and come back with fresh eyes. The patience I built folding origami from 12 is the same patience I use debugging or designing.
Photography
Photography is something I've wanted to get into for a while and recently picked up. I like to capture things in everyday life that are visually striking—whether it be from lighting, mood, or a composition that is provoking—and having a real camera in hand allows me to capture and retain those feelings. The post-processing side is satisfying too; working in Lightroom to reinforce the mood or emphasize an aesthetic brings the final product home. I collect my best shots here.
Weaver's at Night (Allenwood, PA)
Hiking & Running
A view while ascending Algonquin Peak in the Adirondacks
The outdoors is my favorite way to mentally reset. A long climb up beautiful mountains or a run on local trails—it doesn't matter much which, as long as I'm moving and I can decompress.
I've climbed a lot, from the Adirondack High Peaks to peaks in Shenandoah. The most memorable parts are always the stretches where you're not sure you can make it - at your wits' end - and then you do.
Hyner View State Park (Hyner, PA)