Colin Burton he/him

1. Modernising legacy PHP and JavaScript platforms
2. Building tools for developers — More fun these days than features for end users.
3. Bridging engineering and product
4. Leading and growing engineering teams
5. Working with AI — Using AI coding tools seriously without losing the human part.

1. Growing up

   Computers from the start

   Grew up around computers, always curious how they worked, what they could do, how they could make life better for the people using them, and how much fun could be had along the way.

2. 2005–2008

   The lab

   My first job out of college, after a BS in Microbiology from UCSD. Assistant scientist at a contract research lab, working mostly in cell culture and vivarium services: pharmacokinetic studies, immune response, and the effects of pharmaceutical candidates. I was also the marketing coordinator and the IT support, because small labs don't hire three people when one will do.

3. 2008–2011

   Getting by turned into a career

   Laid off in the recession, and a friend helped me land a job building radios for a communications-tech company, just to get by. It became the detour that stuck. I moved into quality control, started building tools to track the data, and the role grew into information systems engineering: web apps built end to end, from the servers to the user interface.

4. 2011–2013

   Back to biotech, through marketing

   Returned to biotech, partly for the company itself and partly to find out whether the field I'd studied was really the one for me. I joined a small marketing team at a research marketplace, with some sales pipeline management. Used web analytics to guide marketing and improve the site, looked after the WordPress and marketing sites, and built the PHP SDK for the company's public API.

5. 2013–2017

   Developer, full time

   Agency developer, starting in San Diego and bringing the job with me to Michigan in 2014: WordPress plugins and themes with third-party API integrations, custom applications built from the ground up on Symfony, and the servers they ran on. Finished as lead developer and architect of a content-marketing platform.

6. 2017–2022

   Specialising in legacy systems

   Wanted to work alongside a local team, and joined one building medical education software. That's where I found I had a knack for understanding and modernising legacy systems, and I leaned into it, working up to lead developer. I improved the infrastructure, built tooling and processes that made other developers more productive, and worked closely with product and infrastructure leadership.

7. 2022–now

   Building a team

   Joined a company whose engineering team at the time was two people. Helped shape it from there: the architecture, the culture, the mission, and the people. I worked across PHP, React, and React Native on web and mobile, and since 2025 I've been staff engineering manager: both a hands-on staff engineer and the manager of the application engineering team. That means owning the technical roadmap and architecture, still writing plenty of the code, working on delivery with product, and mentoring.

• [1] Gremlyn's Beer Blog. Homebrewing notes, recipes with BeerXML downloads, and keezer builds, mostly from 2015 to 2019. Recently moved off WordPress to a static site.
• [2] BJCP Study AidBeing rebuilt. A study tool for the Beer Judge Certification Program style guidelines.

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