Hello World (And Welcome to the Blog)

If you’ve been in software as long as I have, you know that the hardest part of any project isn’t the coding—it’s the initial setup. But here we are: the repo is initialized, the build pipeline is passing (mostly), and I’m finally pushing to production.

Welcome to my blog.

I’m Jared Schraub. For the last two decades, I’ve been working across the full stack of software engineering, from the telecom giants like T-Mobile to the halls of Microsoft, and through the high-pressure world of finance at places like Citadel.

My career has been a gradual evolution over the last twenty years. I started out heavy on the backend, living in the world of SQL Server and Java EE. But as the web evolved, so did I. My focus gradually shifted toward the user, and today I lead a frontend team at a financial market maker, building complex, high-performance systems with TypeScript, React, and C#/.NET.

So, why a blog now?

After twenty years of debugging production fires, debating architecture, and mentoring engineers, I realized I have a lot of opinions—and hopefully, some useful insights to go along with them. I’ve seen frameworks rise and fall, and I’ve learned that while the syntax changes, the core problems often stay the same.

I created this space to get those ideas out of my head and into a format that might actually help someone else. You can expect posts about:

Engineering philosophy: How to build systems that last (and don’t drive you crazy).
The Tech Stack: Deep dives into TypeScript, React, state management, and the occasional battle with C#.
Leadership: What I’ve learned about managing teams, code reviews, and setting standards.
War Stories: Lessons learned the hard way in the financial industry.

A Quick Note on How I Write

Let’s be real: I’m an engineer, not a copywriter or a graphic designer. My skills lie in architecture and optimization, not in prose or pixel art.

To bridge that gap, I use AI tools to help me polish my writing and generate the images you see here. The goal is to express my ideas as constructively and clearly as possible. The opinions, the technical advice, and the coding scars are 100% mine—I’m just using the latest tech to make sure they’re readable.

Thanks for stopping by. I’m excited to share what I’ve learned.