Rob Kleiman

The Tab I Never Closed

My story

The tab I never closed

I opened Chrome DevTools at my first job and never really closed it. Here's where that tab has taken me.

Name2013201520172019202120232025
  1. ideas-on-purpose
  2. creators-clubhouse
  3. codecamp-python
  4. trend-writing
  5. megashift
  6. dev-bootcamp
  7. major-league-hacking
  8. adobe
  9. google
  10. columbia-ms
  11. capital-one
  12. noble-desktop-js
  13. amazon-aws
  14. building-with-ai
14 requests · 14 years · still loading…

  1. 2013

    </> DevTools opens here

    Ideas On Purpose

    First job after college: QA on annual-report microsites for Pfizer and Stanley Black & Decker, testing old Internet Explorer in virtual machines. This is where I opened Chrome DevTools.

    Pfizer's 2013 Annual Review microsite

  2. 2014

    Creators' Clubhouse

    Moved home to Charleston and founded a job board, blog and events for the creative community. Forked a Rails marketplace with one HTML class behind me, and learned to ship.

    A Creators' Clubhouse community event in Charleston

  3. 2015

    CODEcamp: Intro to Python

    An evening Intro to Python course from the Charleston Digital Corridor, taught by local developers. Object-oriented programming finally clicked through metaphors, from reptile classes to a gumball machine, and I've explained code with metaphors ever since.

  4. 2015

    Writing about what's next

    Covered wearables, VR and the Internet of Things, and built a small iOS beacon app in Swift to see how the technology really worked.

  5. 2016

    Megashift

    Started a videocast documenting disruption: conversations with founders and builders about the shifts in business and tech.

    Megashift logo

  6. 2017

    Dev Bootcamp

    Worked in admissions in New York, using those same metaphors to explain coding to career changers, and hosted the events that helped them answer "is coding for me?" Those events led me to hackathons.

    Dev Bootcamp students coding, from the 30-second spot

  7. ~2017–2020

    Major League Hacking

    From bootcamp events to hackathons: worked with organizers worldwide, and automated the membership application that drew 1,000+ applications.

    Hundreds of hackers in a group photo at a Major League Hacking event

  8. ~2020–2021

    Adobe

    Built an XD plugin myself to find where new developers got stuck, then fixed the docs and onboarding around it.

    Adobe Creative Cloud Developer Community

  9. ~2021–2022

    Google

    Launched the 2022 Solution Challenge, supported DevFest, and told the stories of student developers around the world.

    Google Developer Student Clubs 2022 Solution Challenge

  10. ~2022–2023

    Columbia University

    M.S. in Technology Management, then taught AI and machine learning to managers who weren't engineers.

  11. 2023

    Capital One

    Repositioned a bank as a technology company for developers, from billboards in Las Vegas to co-published AWS case studies.

    "That's Technology at Capital One" campaign graphic

  12. ~2024

    Noble Desktop: JavaScript Development certificate

    Went back to the code: JavaScript, then Node, Express and MongoDB, writing tutorials as I learned, from looping through the animal kingdom to shuffling a deck of cards.

  13. ~2024–2025

    Amazon / AWS

    Drove adoption of AI developer tools across 85k engineers, told the Cost-to-Serve story, and delivered DevCon.

    Rob Kleiman on the set of The Edge, Amazon's internal talk show

  14. 2025–2026

    Building with AI

    Shipped my own tools with Claude Code: a startup directory, a podcast clip pipeline, a macOS focus app, and this website.