What's poppin, my name is
Sean Samarov

Music

From a young age, I showed a inclination for music. I started piano lessons at age 4, and ever since music has been a huge part of my life. I quickly grew a taste for other genres, and have since created my own musical aesthetic, combining the subtle, dramatic and moving sound of classical music with the melodic catharsis and power of punk, rock and metal music.

I started singing in 2015, bass in 2019 and guitar in 2021. The saying is true - once you’ve learned piano, you can learn any instrument. My musical background has afforded me a lifelong hobby and occupation. For that, I’m incredibly fortunate and very grateful.

I started my band, Off By One, in 2021 when we covered Sum 41’s iconic ballad, Pieces. We established our distinct cozy indie sound and have expanded into countless genres since.

3D Artwork

While I've always loved visual arts, I’ve never been very good at drawing or painting. Although I do enjoy them, I’ve always struggled to express my ideas with those tools. The day I discovered the power in uniting my creative and technical inclinations to create 3D artwork, my life changed. I started learning 3D programming with ThreeJS and GLSL and translated that knowledge to create more interesting and innovative shaders. All my artwork is made with Blender. I hope one day to finish a video game of my own.

Web Development

Web development (primarily front-end) is yet another area where I find enjoyment in applying both my technical and creative skills. The purely functional nature of UX design and the rigor of the design process are a potent framework to create websites that accomplish their task effectively. That task is simply to address these two questions: Why is the user here, and what do they want?

The advent of WebGL and other 3D technologies for the web has massively expanded the creative possibilities on the web, allowing full immersive experiences to be quickly and easily delivered to users through a web browser.

When I'm not working on extravagant creative projects, my focus is on creating extremely lean and optimized websites/microsites. You'll notice that this website is fully functional without any JavaScript, and just barely uses more memory than an empty new tab. Frameworks and templating engines have their uses, but too many developers focus on the tools first ― and when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

System Administration

Like many techies, I learned about tech because I wanted to play (and eventually make) video games. My adventure with system administration started when I installed Ubuntu on my Chromebook so I could play video games with my friends and eventually started deploying and managing my own game servers. Fast-forward to today ― I've developed a deep and thorough understanding of the Linux operating system and various distros, cloud environments, networking, security, and computer hardware.