Email: jstride@uw.edu
I grew up in San Jose, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. I attended Cupertino HS, which is not all that special or well known, but it was just a few blocks from the home base of Apple. My first computer was an Apple II+, and I proudly displayed this very same machine in my classroom. I have a diverse college experience, having first attended a community college, then Brown University, then San Jose State University, and finally UC Santa Barbara. I was very fortunate to have landed an internship at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View for several years, where I did FORTRAN programming to graph Blackhawk helicopter airfoil data in 3D and learned in a very painstaking way how to do technical writing.
I met my wife at UCSB in a statistics class that I took for fun as I was working toward my Masters degree. I sort of had a warped sense of fun at that time... some say that I still do. I love to hang out with my wife & 3 kids (born in '99, '00 and '05), run & lift weights, watch the Seahawks, watch swimming, watch 3Blue1Brown, Veritasium, and VSauce videos, tell really bad puns and Dad Jokes, and confuse young kids with my sarcasm. I'll occasionally go hiking and snow skiing, travel to far away places, and do product support over the phone for my parents... and ONLY my parents. I coached swimming at Gold's Aquatics in Woodinville for 10 years, and I coached the Girls and Boys swim team for 4 years at NCHS.
I've wanted to be a teacher since I was in high school; I tutored math for many years and volunteer in various classrooms. When I completed my bachelor's degree, I nearly started my teaching certification process then. But, the allure of studying Computer Science alongside the beaches of Santa Barbara was the winner. Microsoft delivered me to the northwest and provided a career for which I am grateful. I had the wonderful opportunity to teach at North Creek HS for 7 years and am now teaching at University of Washington Bothell.
I taught at North Creek HS when the school opened up in 2017 through the 2023-24 year. Before that, I had the opportunity to teach AP Computer Science for 2 years through the TEALS program created at Microsoft. My first year was at Kamiak HS and my second year was at Woodinville HS. Both years I was joined by fellow TEALS cohorts and fantastic teaching faculty that allowed me to identify my teaching personality and skills (many thanks to Paul Mulvaney and Nate Binz).
I spent 22 years at Microsoft in a variety of positions, roles, products, buildings and divisions. My first product was Microsoft Bob that was famously championed by Melinda Gates, and is where the infamous Clippy character in Office originated. I know the developer responsible, but I'm keeping that a secret. I started off as a Tester, moved to Program Management, then became a Developer, Lead Developer, and Engineering Manager. I spent most of my time in client products such as Microsoft Works and Microsoft Money. I spent about 8 years in MSN where my teams shipped the Home Page to 500 million end users world-wide, rewrote the Entertainment channel, and developed front end frameworks. It was truly wonderful to rub elbows with amazingly smart engineers and talented business folks, and meeting famous executives like Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, and the uniquely inspiring Amy Hood. I'm sure my students will either love to hear the stories, or get tired of them.
I aim to inspire our youth to pursue a career in the computer industry, whether that starts with a Computer Science major or not. Computers changed my life and I hope to facilitate a joy of computing, present opportunities, and teach critically important skills: problem solving, grit, and creativity.
Degrees:
B.A. Mathematics & Computer Science from San Jose State University
M.S. Computer Science from UC Santa Barbara