Jack

Hi, I'm Jack. I grew up between San Francisco and Marin County. I was an athletic kid, but inventing and building things kept winning out over sports. I studied computer science at the University of Oregon, and that's where it went from something I liked to something I wanted to do for a living.

School is where I got my hands dirty. I worked as a network engineer for the U of O campus network team. Really I was a “wire monkey,” wrangling routers for dorm rooms. I also spent time in a research lab turning kids' learning books into iPad apps. On my own time I was building JavaScript web apps and messing around with embedded systems. Backbone.js and the first single-page apps hooked me, and I got to watch that whole world grow into React. At the same time I was in a microprocessors lab, wiring Arduinos up to websites and phones. My senior project was an autonomous dog feeder run by a camera, an Arduino, and a pile of other parts.

Oregon also gave me skiing. I joined the U of O ski club and fell hard for Mt. Bachelor, and some of my favorite days are still up there in the snow.

After school I moved to Portland for a year and started at Salesforce, which is where my career really took shape. I came in as a software engineer, moved into solutions engineering, and ended up a pre-sales technical architect supporting Heroku. All told I was there about seven years. Then I went out on my own, building real solutions with customers through my own consulting company, and after that I jumped into a couple of startups. These days I'm a Sr. GTM Systems Lead at LaunchDarkly.

A few things haven't changed. I like to build, and I'm always chasing whatever the new tech is. Somewhere along the way I also got deep into how finance and accounting teams keep SaaS companies pointed at growth and profit. And I've never gotten tired of telling the story of how a technical solution made a real difference.

Outside of work, my main job is Morty, my four-year-old golden retriever and certified baby. I raised him in the Marina, so he's happiest swimming at Crissy Field and is completely, hopelessly obsessed with the ball. Very good boy, shockingly obedient. When I'm not on dog duty, you'll usually find me surfing at Ocean Beach, on a bike (mountain, and lately a lot of road), or out on the golf course.

This site is one of a few things I'm building right now, alongside poutyboi.com and a small consulting practice at platformtrailblazers.com. My code lives at github.com/jziesing.

The full professional rundown lives on the Resume tab, with the roles, certifications, and the things companies care about. If you'd rather just say hi, the Contact tab works.