My name is Charles Kantz, and I am a recent graduate of the Rithm School, where I learned full-stack engineering and led large scale coding projects on the front and back end. For the last 7 years, I was a visual designer and art director for Silicon Valley companies like Intuitive Surgical and Nuro, where I led branding and user experience efforts.

As a designer, I loved to solve visual problems. Over the years, I found myself wanting more than what design was providing. I realized what I loved about my work was solving the more technical challenges, as well as building and implementing designs. I admired developers who took my specs and brought them to life, and I realized that I wanted to explore doing just that.

I got my chance to try development when employed at Nuro by creating a virtual reality prototype for an unreleased product. I learned C# on my own, developed the experience in Unity over three months, and loved every minute of the process. When it was complete, I felt proud and satisfied with my work, which solidified my theory that software engineering was the best path for me. I took this as a sign and attended Rithm School to pursue this new venture.

Outside of my career, I have spent most of my life in the Bay Area, aside from a few years in the suburbs of Portland. Besides immersing myself in development and design, you can find me enjoying sci-fi, photography, video games, baking bread, and the company of friends.