Ben Novack

Dev, PM, civic hacker


I write code, I manage projects, and I help others do both.

I'm a full-time Project Manager for a large retailer, working on data warehousing and reporting systems. Despite the title I still get my hands dirty on a regular basis - Python, SQL, Javascript, Java apps.

Before that, I spent seven years building training simulations for the US Air Force; I wrote a ton of Java, a bit of javascript, as much Python as I could get away with. I acted as de facto product owner for much of that time, on top of my development responsibilities.

I've also coached my teams and others' on how to adopt (and adapt) agile development methods and how to use task & issue tracking tools like Trello and Jira.

In addition to my professional work I'm the Projects Lead for Code for Philly, Philly's civic hacking brigade - part of the Code for America network.

Contact

For most purposes email me at ben@manywords.net. If you're contacting me about anything related to Code for Philly, I'm also reachable at ben@codeforphilly.org.
I'm pretty active on twitter as @titlecharacter.