About Antti
My name is Antti Koskenrouta, I’m a Finnish-born web developer in Washington DC. I made my first website in 1997 with MS FrontPage. I still remember it using frames and a hideous rollover effect in navigation done with Java applets. I’ve worked with the web ever since, and luckily, the tools and the end-products have become much more elegant. In my 13 years of working with the web, probably my biggest professional milestone happened in 2003 when I started to make websites for a living.
While in college, I did a semester abroad at Towson University in Maryland. That really made me want to get a whole degree abroad, and after I graduated with my BBA, I immediately continued to pursue my Master’s degree in the States. I went to Towson with an idea I’d be back in Finland in about a year and a half.
That was six years ago.
After my graduation, I got a job at at InPhonic., Inc. through one of my professors,. At the time, InPhonic was the company behind www.wirefly.com. This turned out to be a great experience. I worked with cool people getting my feet wet with eCommerce. I absorbed a tremendous amount of knowledge about large-scale systems, which became the foundation of my web knowledge today. Most importantly, the time working on the Storefront team was my “CSS Boot Camp”. Every day I learned something new about the quirks [sic] of IE and how to work in a complex development environment. Looking back, my biggest accomplishments were to do the front-end work for BestBuy’s cellular phone online store development project and ensuring the IE7 compatibility of the spaghetti-code (a combo of bad classic ASP and newer .NET code) storefront.
When InPhonic went private and relocated its offices to Reston, VA, I decided to move on. In January of 2008, I went to work at Computech as an on-site consultant to the FCC. Contrary to common belief, working for the government can be hectic! In the last three years, I worked on DTV.gov and re-coded and maintained the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau’s website.
I also worked on Reboot.FCC.gov, which was the FCC’s attempt to modernize its web presence in 2009 before the current redesigned website went live. I worked on Reboot from concept to completion wearing multiple hats. I participated in conceptualizing, prototyping and mainly worked on coding the font-end. I also participated in Information Architecture and implementing and customizing UserVoice.com, a 3rd party discussion platform. Reboot.FCC.gov was also the first site where the FCC used Liferay, a Java-based CMS, for a major project. It was an experience to be a part of that.
In March of 2011 I decided to try my entrepreneurial wings again and became an independent web developer. I plan to work with clients both in DC area as well as Finland and beyond.
Outside work I enjoy ice-hockey (Let’s go, Caps!), working out, and riding around DC on my Vespa LX 150. I live in Adams Morgan with my lovely wife Jenn.
I wake up happy every day knowing I live in the coolest city in the world and go cruise it on my Vespa.