This week we had the awesome opportunity to take an inside look at a day in the life of Jessica Liss, one of our Technical Product Managers.  Jessica is a CSU graduate and has been with ReadyTalk for almost a year.

Describe a typical day for you at ReadyTalk. 

I typically attend a class at the gym downtown (which ReadyTalk helps pay for) and arrive at work a little before 9 a.m. for the daily stand-ups with the teams I work with. It’s great that I have the flexibility to start the day with a workout, so I’m awake and ready to tackle anything that comes my way. Currently, I join the daily meetings of two teams as they review their status on our virtual Kanban board, and I communicate any priorities that have changed since the previous day. After standup, if I don’t have other meetings, I like to sit with the engineers to be available for questions and do some bonding  - though I have to watch my back since I’m often a target of nerf dart attacks! Before lunch I’ll head to a Product Planning meeting, which is composed of leadership from marketing, operations and engineering. Depending on the week, we may be further defining a product’s minimum viable feature set, reviewing wireframes and usability testing results, raising risks / concerns about project status, or discussing important projects that have come up that need to be defined and planned for. Depending on where a project is at in its lifecycle, my afternoon may include performing competitive analysis, meeting with the Product Marketing manager to discuss a launch plan, or writing user stories. One of the things I love about my job is that there really isn’t a “typical” day – my week is fully of a variety of activities with people from across the business… which keeps it interesting!

Why do you think that ReadyTalk is the #1 company to work for in Colorado?

ReadyTalk is the best company to work for in Colorado because of the people and the culture. Few companies are able to authentically define themselves as an employee-centric organization – ReadyTalk has been able to achieve it.  Employees are empowered to do what they love – whether it is coding, testing, selling, marketing, organizing, etc. There is a high level of trust from the leadership that employees are capable of getting the job done without micromanagement. One of my favorite benefits is the ability to volunteer during the day without taking extra time off. It’s been really fun to bond with co-workers while also serving the local community. Furthermore, ReadyTalk invests in their employees and provides unique training and professional development opportunities that many organizations have unfortunately cut out of their budgets.

Tell us about your favorite day at work…

One of my favorite days at work occurred a few months after I started… I was working with a team of new engineers on our product called the Quick Launcher. Our job was to take a partially developed product, figure out what still needed to be done, and release it to production. The team unified and took ownership and pride in the Quick Launcher. They brought creativity and talent to make it better than the company could have anticipated. The team really bonded during development and the launch was a big moment of celebration. Each of us brought in something to share for the release party – three types of homemade salsa (one that was mild enough for me to enjoy), tortilla chips, and Limoncello from my recent trip to Italy to make some tasty drinks. As I was grabbing glasses and a bowl upstairs, I ran into the CEO, Dan King, and his brother Scott, EVP, and casually invited them to join us for the party. Without hesitation and with only 5 minutes notice, they both came to cheer on the team. Just last Friday, we had another release party and had all the executive staff there to celebrate and congratulate the team on their hard work.  I appreciate the team-centric and collaborative atmosphere that is found throughout the organization regardless of title.

If someone were interested in working on your team at ReadyTalk what advice would you have for them?

My advice would be to be passionate about what you do, know your strengths and the value you bring to the organization, and be able to genuinely articulate what gets you excited about the opportunity to work at ReadyTalk.

Katie Green is part of the ReadTalk Recruiting Team (AKA the Beaphins)  She has been in the recruiting industry for 10 years and has developed a strong interest in technology and technical recruitment. When she isn’t searching for technical talent for ReadyTalk you might find her at the tennis court, playing volleyball or learning a new song on guitar!

In an effort to showcase what makes ReadyTalk Engineering one of the best teams to be a part of, we have decided to provide a series we are calling “Inside Edition” to give our readers an inside look as to what makes ReadyTalk Engineering click!  We have selected an engineer to provide a personal description of their experiences at ReadyTalk!

Inside Edition with Matt Weaver

Describe a typical day for you at ReadyTalk

It’s 8:17and I may or may not be fully “awake.”  My level of “awake” is inversely proportional to the level of sunlight and warmth in the morning: the longer and colder my bicycle commute (due to ice, Taun Taun traffic, etc) the more I need heart palpitating levels of caffeine.  It’s 8:17 and when that empty stomach, caffeine high kicks in a minute or two later, I’m working.  Music on the headphones, a brisk tattoo pounded out on the poor keys of my keyboard and I have tapped the sweet mainline of productivity.  My god.  The thoughts are kicking, ideas are flowing, and I can’t type fast enough, nor compile quickly enough to see things in action.  This is prime time for productivity and, aside from a few Nerf based skirmishes (my god, the darts… the darts… orange tracers in my dreams, oh humanity!), the window between eight-whatever and noon is a smooth code jam… did I just type that? (did I just break the fourth wall of narrative?)

As the lunching hours approach, if I’m not too involved (because sometimes I am) I am faced with a use of time type quandary: if the weather’s warm or, at least, not icy, I may throw a leg over my road bike and try to squeeze in a twenty mile ride, I may just ride to my favorite record shop to enjoy the fresh air or meet an associate in the park for a lunch gab session, or my coworkers may cajole me into a lunch somewhere in lower downtown.  Today it was a lunch at Ted Turner’s bison loving burger chain replete with work discussions, jokes, yelling, crying, and jokes.  Did I mention the jokes?

Afternoons are a fine time for meetings… because even if I haven’t attempted to ascend gluttony heights (e.g. I worked out and am drinking a horrible protein shake or my own sweat and tears… that is, nothing), I’m never that productive.  So a meeting or two.  Today a coworker has questions about a software design.  We scribble on a white board and raise our voices.  We lower them and agree.  Ideas are fielded, white papers are read, articles are linked to, social networking sites are updated (no day is complete without the tangy smack of narcissism, you have, of course been reading this tripe…).

And the day ends.  Some days, the team may go out for a cocktail or two.  Others, I work into the night, not because I’m forced to, but because I’ve had a new surge of productivity or I’ve solved a problem, and riding that wave is worth the personal sacrifice.  Still others, the day ends uneventfully (except for another round of Nerf darts, fired for effect… war never ends, war never begins) and I ride home to my girlfriend, my dog, and my non-work friends.

Today, I pack up my Macbook and ride home under twilight.

All this is merely evidence that my job is pleasing: a design challenge here, an obstacle there (why won’t the Cocoa API actually respond to this call… grrr), and the day is over.  It’s a rather good thing.

Why do you think that ReadyTalk is the #1 company to work for in Colorado?

(Re-read abovefor the story, but…) I work with far less process and far less constraint than in other jobs I’ve had (I’ve been writing software as a day job since my internship in 2000).  I like the people I work with.  Those are givens and, honestly, not enough reason to work somewhere (though they can easily be enough reason to “not work” somewhere).  The real reason(s) I like my job?  I ride to work in a decently sized city.  I like my coworkers and I’ve worked here long enough to have roots in the company.  I enjoy the problems I solve.  I enjoy the work life balance afforded by the company.  I can work from home, if I have to.  I come and go as I need to.  It’s a job that places much trust in me and, as trite as it sounds, supports my urban-bent lifestyle.

Tell us about your favorite day at work…

This is rather a harder task than you might imagine, for I’ve just had too many high points to single out one.  That’s the problem with having a “good” job.  But it’s dishonest and rather cheap to just hand wave and say “they’re all good days” because that doesn’t really sell it, it fails to say anything useful.  The qualities of a good day, a great day, involve balance: solving a long standing problem, figuring out a design that hits home in usability testing or a software design that solves many problems, affecting the outcome of a project for the better, leaving work early to meet an out of town friend for a drink in uptown… it could really be any number of things, but to strike that balance is particularly important.  But, a singular day that presents itself was a demo of an Android based version of our service.  I woke up early, unable to sleep.  I had tried not to take the project home with me, but I did.  I sat at my Eames knock off table and sipped my way through half a bottle of bourbon fixing bugs and trying to add some much needed polish to our application.  Then I went to bed… and didn’t sleep.  So I woke before the sun rose and rode in.  A coworker and I had ported much code and sketched out much of the design of a new client that was built on newer ideas and utilized newer technologies from several open source projects.  We tried not to, but we coded all morning before the demo.  It wasn’t a product demo, it was a research project.  And after that presentation, we sighed heavily.  It was a sort of high, a rapturous glow in which we felt like we had done something.  It had taken a few nights and a few weekends, but we had built something new from near scratch and it felt good.  That, devoid of any other trappings, was one of my best days at work.

4. If someone were interested in working on your team @ReadyTalk what advice would you have for them?

What’s that joke about advice?  Or no… that’s opinions I’m thinking of.  We all have them, etc.  (Insert laughter here).  My advice would be incomplete, but simple: be teachable, be curious.  I forget things  (I blame whisky).  I learn new ones.  Failure to admit my own ignorance about something stupid is a waste of my time.  I’d rather look silly for a moment (“what server is the failover production db?”) than get in the way of forward progress.  That’s more important than any other advice I can give you.  If pressed about my team, the client portion of our real-time application, I’d add this, less noble sounding advice: know when to delegate.  If you don’t get excited by good UX or have skills there yet, there are people who can help you or do that part of a task.  If you are uncomfortable with an architectural piece, either in the system or in the client code, ask someone.  Bring it up.  It dovetails nicely into that other rot, but it’s worth noting.  The best way to learn and all that.

Katie Green is part of the ReadTalk Recruiting Team (AKA the Beaphins)  She has been in the recruiting industry for 10 years and has developed a strong interest in technology and technical recruitment. When she isn’t searching for technical talent for ReadyTalk you might find her at the tennis court, playing volleyball or learning a new song on guitar!

Due to the fact that a lot of ReadyTalk products are client facing, our engineers have the opportunity to really make an impact in our product and the industry that we are in. Our goal is to capture innovation and take a sneak peak into what the future of ReadyTalk could look like.  In order to ensure engineers are involved in Research & Development we have implemented an 80/20 model.  How it works is that engineers will spend 80% of their time on the ReadyTalk product and getting new releases out to our clients.  The other 20% of their time they have the autonomy to build things that could potentially make ReadyTalk better.  It is an opportunity for unguided innovation and they can either work on something independently or team up with other engineers that they perhaps have not worked with in the past.

We celebrated Labs Day which was Friday 10/28/11.  The engineers were busy working on their personal projects and had the opportunity to present their ideas to the team.

The day started at 10:00AM with Demos from a few of our engineering team members including Dave Clements,Troy Hilland Ryan Kish.  We were then lucky enough to have Wahoo’s Taco Bar catered in for lunch. We got spoiled with chips, salsa and of course fabulous Wahoo’s Tacos.  After lunch we continued Demo Days with presentations fromMatt Klich,Rich Scottand Mike Jenson.  Homemade beer was served after the Demos wrapped up and a great time was had by all!

Katie Green is part of the ReadTalk Recruiting Team (AKA the Beaphins)  She has been in the recruiting industry for 10 years and has developed a strong interest in technology and technical recruitment. When she isn’t searching for technical talent for ReadyTalk you might find her at the tennis court, playing volleyball or learning a new song on guitar!

Last week we traveled to the Colorado School of Mines and Colorado State University to meet students, answer questions and arrange future ReadyTalk internships and careers! We spoke with many talented students who bring a fresh technical perspective and enthusiasm about their futures in technology. They have ideas on new mobile apps, and video games (not just playing them, but actually building them) and many just seem to want to find ways to help enhance other’s lives.

The Colorado School of Mines is ranked one of the top engineering schools in the country and we are lucky enough to have several Colorado School of Mines graduates here at ReadyTalk including: Seth Goings, Michael Keesey, Mark Godwin, David Clements and Josh Warner just to name a few…A couple of them joined us at the Colorado School of Mines Career Fair to scope out the top talent. See us in action below…

Mark Godwin, Tux the Linux Penguin, Seth Goings, Michael Keesey (from left)

Seth Goings, Katie Green, Michael Keesey, Mark Godwin (from left) Tux the Linux Penguin (front row)

From Top Left to Right Tux – the Linux penguin, Katie Green, Catherine Harrison, Seth Goings, Michael Keesey, Mark Godwin

Colorado State University offered one of the first engineering programs in the state of Colorado! They even offer a program called International Engineering which is a dual degree program involving liberal arts and engineering courses.  Students are encouraged to participate in programs such as Engineers Without Borders where students work on international service projects.  ReadyTalk also has a few CSU graduates including: Mike Jenson, Jessica Liss and Brandt Abbott.  ReadyTalk engineer’s Mike Jensen, Chris Weaver and Christopher Lamey helped recruit students at this years CSU Career Fair.

Mike Jenson poses at the ReadyTalk booth!

Chris Weaver and Catherine Harrison recruiting students at CSU career fair.

In addition to attending Mines and CSU, we have been incredibly busy back in the office seeking the top Software Engineering talent out there. We are currently looking for Client Software Engineers, Server Software Engineers, Software QA Engineers and  Web Application Engineers.  Please contact katie.green@readytalk.com or catherine.harrison@readytalk.com if you are interested in learning more.

On a final note, we have now memorized 11 numbers of Pi.  In addition we have been studying up on the Fibonacci Sequence.  Some of you may not know this, but it was invented before electricity!

Katie Green is part of the ReadTalk Recruiting Team (AKA the Beaphins)  She has been in the recruiting industry for 10 years and has developed a strong interest in technology and technical recruitment. When she isn’t searching for technical talent for ReadyTalk you might find her at the tennis court, playing volleyball or learning a new song on guitar!