About Me

Keith Elder

Bio

Keith Elder is a Team Leader, Engineering at Rocket Mortgage (RKT), the nation’s largest mortgage lender, which is based in Detroit, Michigan. He is an experienced technologist, architect, systems administrator, software engineer, speaker, trainer, and all-around geek. He has spoken throughout the United States at major technical conferences on topics ranging from various new technologies, software architectures, and soft skills. For over 12 years he led the Engineering Tools team as the Director of Software Engineering within Rocket Mortgage (RKT). Today he leads the Pricing team supporting Capital Markets. When not sitting in front of a computer he spends the majority of his time as captain of the vessel Sea Sharp navigating the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. You can read more about Keith’s interests, hobbies, rants, and raves on his blog at http://keithelder.net/ and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/keithelder (note, he doesn't tweet much anymore, so if you really want to know what's happening send him a chat in Teams).

Prior to Rocket Mortgage

• Graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi

  • Bachelor of Music Education Degree, BME
  • Computer Science Minor (lacked 6 hours to completion)
    • To learn how I got started with computers listen to the Hello World Podcast where I was a guest

• Served as band director at Cope Middle School in Bossier City, LA

• Created and ran a multi-million-dollar online hardware startup in Ann Arbor, MI

  • We started with one full-time employee and that became 25 during my tenure.
  • Sold 1,000+ computers to Detroit Public Schools
  • Built a custom Linux desktop/server configurator, which was ahead of its time
  • Built and sold 1000 Linux servers that powered Indiana University's first beowulf cluster
  • I learned a tremendous amount about running a business, customer satisfaction, sales, accounting, hiring good team members, and building a team.

• Led a software development consulting company that specialized in building custom applications using Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP.

• Taught professional PHP training. Instructed engineers from Amazon, eBay, Ford, GM, Chrysler

• Adjunct Faculty at Washtenaw Community College

  • Taught 4 Linux Certification classes (Unix Basics, Networking, Security, Administration)
  • Taught Web development

Personality Traits

• ENTP (visionary) - https://www.truity.com/personality-type/ENTP
• ESFP-A (entertainer) - https://www.16personalities.com/esfp-personality
• Four Portraits – Builder/Adventurer - http://winningcolors.com/exercise-1/