I'm Nathan Nicholas, CTO at Aspen Integrity and co-founder of Oak Street Solutions in Denton, Texas. My path into data engineering started at home, not at work. Building and maintaining a self-hosted server taught me how systems behave under pressure, and solving my own infrastructure problems turned out to be good practice for solving other people's.

That foundation shaped how I approach professional work. I care about the parts most people skip: backup strategies that are actually tested, security that was thought through instead of bolted on, databases that were designed rather than accumulated. I've spent real time understanding how these things work at a low level, not because it's exciting, but because skipping that work is where quality falls apart. The difference between a system that holds up and one that doesn't usually lives in the boring details someone decided weren't worth their time.

Most of my work comes down to connecting systems that were never designed to talk to each other and making sure what gets built is maintainable, protected, and honest about its own limitations. Impressive in a demo is easy. Still working correctly in two years is the goal.

Community is core to our family life. My wife, Megan, and I have been active in our church community since 2010, where I serve on the production team and we help lead in marriage ministry. I also enjoy audiobooks, music, movies, TV, 3D printing, and hanging out and goofing off with my daughter, spending time with our family and friends, and cuddling with our dog, Cooper, on the couch even when I'm not supposed to let him up there.