Back when Neo4j was just a single tidy Java jar, I was doing international do-gooder work. Specifically, I was helping build Zambia's national health information system. Most patient record systems are really billing systems. We wanted patient care. Struggling to stretch an RDBMS schema to be both flexible and predictable led to my personal graph epiphany.

My neighbor at the time (in Baltimore, MD!) happened to be building an ontology database. Close enough. "Hey Bill, could we use your database for patient records?" "Do you have a budget?" "Well, we're supposed to use all open-source." "Hmm.. go take a look at this project called 'Neo4j'".

I've grown with Neo4j from contributor, to core engineer, to developer relations, to product management. Now I'm back with developer relations, spending time with amazing people, sharing ideas and helping build graph-powered tools and applications.