Hey, I'm Parker Landon đź‘‹
I'm currently working as a Fullstack Software Engineer at Smartsheet. I just graduated from Seattle Pacific University with three majors—Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, and Honors Liberal Arts—and a minor in Data Analytics. Here's a timeline of where I've been and where I'm headed.
- 2012: When the librarian restricted my computer lab access to Flash games like Adventure Quest and Bloons Tower Defense, I tried to make my own Flash game website. So, I lept down the rabbit hole and began learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Eventually, I discovered that coding was not just a means to that Flash game end but an end in and of itself: it was fun.
- 2019: I began programming again through an AP Computer Science class and eventually started working for egghead.io reviewing older web development courses hosted on their platform. This work reignited my interest in web development and, over the following year, I picked up React, TypeScript, and several other tools.
- 2020: I participated in a Portfolio Project Club hosted by egghead. The goal of this club was for each member to design and build a web project that would make for an impressive portfolio piece. I built an app called tends that simplified the tracking of quantities (e.g., calories, exercise, etc.) for users. The club also presented the chance to publish a technical case study detailing the design and build process; I eagerly took advantage of that opportunity, and now have my own technical case study living on egghead.io.
- 2021: I continued my work as an intern for egghead.io, taking on GitHub issues, contributing to the site, and continuing to review courses. I also got to lead my own Portfolio Project Club iteration, now focusing on state management in React. During this internship experience, I began to feel confident as a web developer. As the summer ended and my sophomore year of college started, I felt ready to take on large-scale projects and demanding developer responsibilities.
- 2022: During the winter term of my sophomore year of college, I began developing a full-stack participation-tracking application (called knowted) for professors to use in their courses. This web application integrates with the Canvas Learning Management System to streamline student participation tracking for course instructors. You can read more about this project in my portfolio section.
- 2022, continued: I also began applying to countless software engineering summer internships. Eventually, after some 100 applications and several interviews, I landed a software engineering internship with Smartsheet. My task for that summer was to work with my assigned mentor, product managers, designers, UX researchers, and other engineers to design and implement a solution based on user stories and requirements. The experience facilitated me working with every layer in the tech stack, from the React/TypeScript frontend to the Java backend and MySQL database, and ultimately it confirmed my passion for software engineering.
- 2023: I continued building personal projects and excelling in school. I returned to Smartsheet as a summer intern once more, this time working on a decoupling project that involved refactoring legacy frontend code.
- 2024: I graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a 4.0 GPA across three majors and a minor. I published a research paper for my Honors degree about implementing parsers and interpreters in Haskell. I returned to Smartsheet, joining the Conversations team as a full-time Software Engineer.
- 2025:
I'm so busy in the best way possible. Every day I code and read to improve as an engineer. I'm traveling and enjoying life more than ever. It's not easy, but I'm so aligned with this trajectory, and I only want to do more. My extra-work career goals for now are,
- Write more
- Make more content (check out my YouTube)
- Build an awesome product (coming soon)
Otherwise, here's my quote for the year.
We who cut mere stones must be envisioning cathedrals.
Cheers.