About Jon Laing

Courtroom Sketch

The horrible beast of legend, Jon Laing has terrorized the countrysides of Europe, Asia, and parts of Detroit for centuries. A grotesque fiend with battle axes for feet and daggers for eye-balls, he is perhaps best known his hauntingly graceful choreography and solemn opera compositions. Many may remember him from the epic of Will Smith in which Laing was described as a man “who [was] up to no good” and “starting making trouble in [his] neighborhood”. Smith was later placed in the FBI witness protection program and is presumed to have been relocated to somewhere on the West Coast of the United States.

After winning a game of Russian roulette with Ernest Hemmingway, Laing attempted to break into the arts. He played a formative role in the hit TV show “Diff’rent Strokes” and even voiced the CGI character, Arnold Jackson in the series’ pilot episode. After being replaced by Randy Savage for the voice of Arnold, Laing attempted to become a famous abstract expressionist painter.

Laing put his best foot forward as a “self taught” artist. He was quickly met with rejection and scorn, but would not be deterred. Upon adoptiong the psuedonym, “Cy Twombly”, Laing began to see palpable success, and was even able to waste a copious amount of wall space at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Regarding this turn of events, he was quoted as saying, “I’m starting to think this whole art thing is a load of bull mess.” After years of frustration, Laing chose to attend the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where his suspicions were confirmed.

In 2011, after kicking his self-esteem addiction, Laing was released from the University on Parole Cum Laude. He lives in relative obscurity, making horse sculptures out of strands of eyebrow hairs and cannoli filling.

Work Experience

Makerbot Industries LLC

Lead of Desktop Software: Aug 2016 — Present

Leading a team of 5 in developing the desktop app to interface with the 3D printers. Responsibilites include writing software, scoping tasks and planning sprints, delegating to team members, and mentoring more junior team members.

Technologies: Javascript ES6, Typescript, Electron, ReactJS

Partisan.IO Inc.

Founder and Lead Engineer: Sept 2015 — Present

Partisan is a mobile-only political social network I created built in Golang and React Native. It uses a series of prompts to determine a user’s political leanings and matches them with other users with whom they might agree. I open sourced the project in 2017.

Technologies: Javascript ES6, Go, React Native, Sketch

Brainscape

Creative Director and Senior Web Engineer: Aug 2012 — Jan 2016

Brainscape is an ed-tech startup building a “smart flashcard” app guaranteed to help your learn and retain information on any subject using cognitive science. During my time there, I cleaned up the back-end I inherited, converted the front-end to ReactJS, and redesigned the entire UX on both web and mobile, as well as redesigned the entire graphic identity of the product.

Technologies: Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, Javascript, Ruby on Rails, ReactJS, jQuery

American College of Physicians

Lead Engineer: Aug 2011 — Aug 2012

As a part of a staff of six at the Digital Product Development department, I was charged with building web applications to help medical professionals earn continuting education credits. My primary responsibility the lead programmer of their flagship self-assessment web application, MKSAP 16, built on Ruby on Rails.

Technologies: Ruby on Rails

Education

University of the Arts

Illustration and Design: Class of 2011

Since 1876, University of the Arts has been a prestigious institution in the applied arts. The university brings together colleges that focus on disciplines including design, theatre, music, and communication technologies. This mosaic of disciplines breeds creativity while encouraging entrepreneurship.