Blogs
Here are some fun things I've worked on & written about.
What's it like to buy a house in 2023?
I moved out from my parents' house in October 2021. I remember renting a U-Haul truck, loading it up with the few pieces of furniture I had left over from college or taken from my grandpa's old house, and setting off for Tinton Falls. I found a nice, albeit small, apartment with a buddy I worked with and was ready to move out from home and spread my adult wings.
That apartment was good to me for basically two years. It was close to the beach, the rent was cheap, and it allowed me to grow on my own.
Recently, however, I realized I was ready for the next steps. I just got a new job that was fully remote, so I had no ties to a specific location. I was tired of losing money to rent every month and wanted to move somewhere closer to my girlfriend near the city, my family, and my friends. But on top of that, I wanted to live somewhere fun.
Over a few weeks, I started putting together my house list:
The Realistic Software Engineer Job Hunt
I was happy with my job. I would almost go so far as saying I was very happy. I had some good friends within the company and had a really good relationship with my team and manager. I was working on a semi-modern tech stack (Java Spring Boot microservices with React front-ends) and continuing to learn at a company with good work-life balance. I had a hybrid work schedule that I chose, so I would make the 20 minute commute into office once a week for the complimentary breakfast.
In short, I was content where I was.
It wasn't perfect. The work came in waves; some sprints were action-packed with lots of spillover, others were so light I was practically begging my manager for more to work on.
But most important was that I was being underpaid.
What is it like working at an early-stage startup?
As a computer nerd, I genuinely love programming. I love to think analytically and solve complex problems and create a product from scratch.
Working full-time at iCIMS didn't really scratch enough of that itch for me. Sure, I was writing code and solving problems, but I always wanted to be doing more.
I would spend weekends working on silly projects, like creating a sports gambling bot, building a camera, or trying to algorithmically profit off of stocks. However, this didn't fulfill me quite the way I was looking for. I wanted to create more on my own terms.
One afternoon when I was scrolling through twitter when I came across the tweet below.
How easy is it to make a profitable sports gambling bot in a month?
I think every male on the planet wants to find a get-rich-quick scheme betting on sports. 99% of the time, betting is just a fun thing to do when watching sports to make the game mean more.
1% of the time, however, someone figures out some consistent formula that beats the sportsbooks and makes legitimate profits. Usually, this comes after years of tweaking your model and backtesting to devise a model that out-performs Vegas just 52% of the time.
I didn't want to wait that long.
I wanted to make a profitable sports gambling model in a month.
To clarify, however, I didn't think I would actually make a profitable model. I didn't pretend to think I had some magic idea that no one else did. I just thought I would give myself a month to give it a shot and see what the process would be like. I think sports betting is fun and I like to program, why wouldn't I combine my interests to try to make money?
Making this Website
I've always wanted a really nice portfolio website. My friends in the industry always had these sweet, custom websites with Javascript particle effects and fancy CSS animations.
Meanwhile, I would always write inline CSS (it's so much easier to keep track of!), struggle with basic Javascript, and mess up semantic HTML.
I was initially turned off by making my own site. I had done some very simplistic HTML development in college classes, but I knew it was nothing in comparison to what my friends could do. I figured I just didn't need my own portfolio site.
The one reason I changed my mind was honestly seeing my one friend who bought a domain. He went on namecheap.com and bought hisfullname.me for 9 dollars.
He only spent $9 for a year with that domain.
That was the push I needed to start building my own site.
That night, I bought jasongomes.me for $8.88.
Can you predict sleepers in the NBA Draft using machine learning?
In case you couldn't tell by looking at this site, I really love basketball.
I always was an NBA fan since the days of Jason Kidd and Allen Iverson. My dad is a New Jersey high school basketball scout, so he was more interested in watching the local guys play college basketball.
Regardless, basketball was always on a TV at my house.
Eventually, I felt like I had a good grasp on both college and NBA basketball, which led to me really loving the NBA Draft. I loved making mock drafts and guessing where each player was going, and then projecting how good the player would be in their situation.
I was writing articles about the NBA Draft as far back as 2014 (although it seems like some of the images are no longer hosted on the server).
Once I got to college, my love for college basketball grew as I became a student manager for the Rutgers men's team. I got really invested in scouting and analytics.