Marcos Ojeda, Designer, DJ, and Dog Owner

Hi, I'm Marcos Ojeda!

I work on a mix of frontend web programming and design here at Khan Academy. I often split my time between the two, thinking about how things should work while I think about how they should look. At work I program in JavaScript and Python, primarily. For design work, I use Adobe Illustrator for drawing and robofont when I need to hack on a font.

My older brother showed me how to program on a VIC-20 by having me copy games out of old magazines when I was around six years old. It was incredibly frustrating. I didn't really catch the programming bug until around seventh grade when a Borland C Compiler appeared on our PC. My first significant program came around 9th grade which printed a table of possible combos for Master Locks. That was my first "formal" exposure to modulo arithmetic and for loops.

In high school, around 1998, I briefly programmed and admin'd a text-based online game which sucked away probably a year of my life. A year later, I got into web programming and made a primitive CMS using php3 and mysql by spending most of the fall reading webmonkey articles and experimenting with webpages and online publishing. Going to college, I didn't learn much programming, but I learned lots of theory which has served me well. Even now I'm not a very quick programmer, but I keep learning all the time and I'm always making new things which doesn't hurt.

Depending on how busy I am, I love to cook with my wife. When I was in college I worked as a line-cook which made me a very competent cook. I still have a whole bookshelf full of vinyl from when I used to DJ Jungle/Drum & Bass and UK Garage music between 2002-2007.

After college, I went to art school and the most influential class I took there was in Type Design where I learned about drawing an entire typeface. I have drawn, on average, about one font every two years since ~2008. I also have a dog!

It sounds silly, but the most important thing for me has been to make things that make me giggle. Recreational programming is something of a luxury, but it has forced me to learn new things and challenged me in ways I didn't expect. Having a friend who can gut-check your work or provide honest feedback on your projects is invaluable, seek them out!