Profiles in Nerdery: Ryan Kucera, Credibility adder

1. Astrological Sign: Taurus
2. Time at the Nerdery: 4 years, 5 months
3. Area of expertise: All aspects of Web application development
4. When people ask you what you do, how do you respond: My standard response is, “I add technical knowledge and credibility to the sales efforts at Sierra Bravo.” When prompted for “Occupation” on a form, however, I still write in “Programmer.”
5. Favorite kinds of projects to work on: I enjoy projects that are driven by the excitement and enthusiasm of the customer. No matter how challenging the timeline or technical scope, we always succeed when the developers and stakeholders share a common sense of excitement about launching the end product. Even if it’s something as seemingly mundane as online auto glass ordering, as soon as the client says, “We’re gonna turn this industry upside-down when this site launches!” I know we’re in for a fun and fulfilling project.
6. What one thing about The Nerdery surprises people the most when you tell them about it: The fact that we allow dogs in the office surprises my friends and family the most. Then I explain that my dog isn’t allowed, which makes this fact more believable. (Dasher is a bit barky, nippy, and leaky; all bad traits for an office dog!) On the flip side, I expected more of my cycling friends to be impressed with our awesome bike-commuter friendliness (showers, indoor bike parking, general acceptance of stinky, sweaty cyclists…). To my surprise, many companies in the Twin Cities are equally accommodating.
7. Seven dream Jeopardy Categories: Photoshop keyboard shortcuts; Acronyms of the Mpls/St. Paul bike routes; Airport Codes of Asia; Stephen King movie cameos; Scalix bugs and glitches; Regular Expression patterns; All-Wheel Drive station wagons of the early ’80′s
8. Favorite Fictional Nerd: MacGyver. His name is still a verb in my vocabulary. As in “Damn, this fuse is blown, but the parts store is closed. Guess I’ll have to MacGuyver it with some tinfoil.” MacG was a master of solving problems pragmatically, always using technology and creativity over brute force. I like to think that these same qualities have made me an effective programmer and problem-solver throughout my career.
9. According to the Wikipedia entry on Nerd, some nerds show a pronounced interest in subjects which others tend to find dull or complex and difficult to comprehend, or overly mature for their age, especially topics related to science, disambiguation, mathematics and technology. Do you know what disambiguation is: I see what you did there.