About Me

Hi there,

I'm Sam, a full stack .NET developer from the UK. In my day job, I build enterprise-grade web applications using ASP.NET Core and a number of frontend JavaScript frameworks (although Vue is my favourite!). In my own time, I like to try out different technologies, write about them, and help out the developer community.

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Background

My background hasn't always been in web development. I studied Biochemistry at university and had dreams of becoming a professor and running my own research lab. To this end, I enrolled on a PhD programme and the topic of my thesis was on Structural Glycobiology (understanding how the structure of carbohydrates affects how they interact in the body).

My research relied a lot on running various computer simulations, meaning that I got used to writing various different scripts (mostly Unix shell scripts and Python) to generate, process and analyse my data.

About halfway through my PhD, I realised that continuing down the academic path really wasn't for me, and that actually I really enjoyed writing these scripts. I decided then that I wanted to become a developer and I used the rest of my spare time during my PhD to learn programming properly. I mostly used resources like Free Code Camp and Udemy to learn full stack JavaScript development.

Once I started searching for jobs, I realised that most companies in my area were looking for .NET developers. By then I was pretty competent with JavaScript and I'd learnt a lot of core programming concepts so learning C# came fairly naturally.

I'm happy to say that I still got my PhD (hence why this blog is called Dev Doc) and I started a role as a Junior .NET developer shortly after. Now I'm a mid-level developer and use my spare time to give back to the community by writing .NET themed blog posts and tutorials.

Hobbies

Admittedly I probably spend way too much of my own time coding, writing about coding, reading about coding, and thinking about coding. When I'm not doing any of those things I like to:

🎸 Play guitar

🏞️ Go for hikes

🏎️ Watch Formula 1 racing

Social Media

The best place to find me is on Twitter: @dr_sam_walpole