Tag Archives: meet the team

Featured, Meet the Team, Office Life

Meet the Team: Seth

Hello and welcome to our Meet the Team series, in which we aim to give you deeper insight into the minds and personalities of those who make up this eclectic, close-knit group. We are developers, marketers, and technical support engineers, and at work we craft everything from Microsoft reporting APIs to mobile email applications. And outside of work? Let’s just say racing against the machine during hackathons, building architecturally sound beer towers during retros, and paddling down the Charles during the warmer months are simply the beginning.

SethMeet Seth – our quality control man, subscriber of (and living) This Developer’s Life, most closely personified by a strong spring lager, and powerless to the smile a clever line of code brings.

1. What do you do?

I’m a software engineer on the OfficeWriter team, so I spend my days hunting bugs, implementing cool new features, and trying to come up with new products.

2. What are you listening to right now?

Lake Street Dive – Clear a Space

3. If you could build any app, what would it be and why?

A contact de-duplication/management app that actually works well.

Also a bus/train app that just shows all departure times at the nearest stop…why do I need to choose a stop? My phone knows where I am!

4. When you were 5 what did you want to be and why?

In my early years I wanted to be a nature and wildlife photographer, working for National Geographic.  I was always going around taking pictures of landscapes and animals.  On our family trips to national parks, my younger brother and I would always get as close as we could to the wildlife (including a grizzly bear once) to get a good photo.

5. If you were a beer what would you be and why? Continue reading Meet the Team: Seth →

Featured, IT, Meet the Team

Meet the Team: Nick

Hello and welcome to our Meet the Team series, in which we aim to give you deeper insight into the minds and personalities of those who make up this eclectic, close-knit group. We are developers, marketers, and technical support engineers, and at work we craft everything from Microsoft reporting APIs to mobile email applications. And outside of work? Let’s just say racing against the machine during hackathons, building architecturally sound beer towers during retros, and paddling down the Charles during the warmer months are simply the beginning.

Meet the TeamMeet Nick. Our systems admin and skilled crew champ and cook. While he claims he doesn’t know what’s wrong with your wi-fi (see below), we’re pretty sure he can fix just about anything.

1. What do you do?
I get paid to play with computers? In all seriousness, I’m the systems admin for SoftArtisans, which means I maintain our server infrastructure, build system images, troubleshoot printers, reset passwords, and ensure that our websites stay up.

2. What are you listening to right now?
Lately, I’ve been listening to Spotify quite a bit, but usually I just have the Hype Machine’s popular channel on. It’s a great place to discover artists, and really changed how I listen and think about music over the past few years.

3. If you could build any app, what would it be and why?
Something that lets me execute remote commands from my phone – simple stuff like resetting a password, rebooting a server, restarting a service – that sort of thing. It’d be a huge security hole in any network, but it’d be nice to have when I’m out to lunch and just need to do something quick.

4. When you were 5 what did you want to be and why?
I wanted to be a Marine Biologist because I was fascinated with Robert Ballard (the guy who found the Titanic, the Bismark, and a number of other ships). Sadly, I soon realized that most of them don’t spend all their time hunting for shipwrecks.

5. If you were a beer what would you be and why? Continue reading Meet the Team: Nick →

Meet the Team, Office Life

Meet the Team: Christiana

Hello and welcome to our Meet the Team series, in which we aim to give you deeper insight into the minds and personalities of those who make up this eclectic, close-knit group. We are developers, marketers, and technical support engineers, and at work we craft everything from Microsoft reporting APIs to mobile email applications. And outside of work? Let’s just say racing against the machine during hackathons, building architecturally sound beer towers during retros, and paddling down the Charles during the warmer months are simply the beginning.Christiana

Meet Christiana – our Illustrator pen-wielding, master of design, making things beautiful on the daily (see the recent website redesign) and bringing a lightness to the office with her sparkling wit.

1.What do you do?

I’m the graphic/web designer for the company.

2. What are you listening to right now?

The iTunes Festival

3. When you were 5 what did you want to be and why?

I probably wanted to be the only member of an adult Fisher-Price marching band, but who remembers 5? Sometime after 5 I wanted to be a news reporter, because I always loved when breaking news came on. And I’m not talking about being an anchorwoman. Nope, I wanted to be the live-on-scene person interrupting your TV shows. That was until the realizations hit that in no way did I want to be in front of a camera, I hated the idea of driving around in a van, and was highly opposed to writing any kind of reports. I reassessed.

4.What is your favorite tech blog and why?

Smashing Magazine. They have so many design and code-related tips, tricks, and inspirational goodies.

5. What is your worst nightmare?

Web-weaving terrorists tethering down and air-bombing me as I sleep….Spiders.

Continue reading Meet the Team: Christiana →

Meet the Team, Office Life

Meet the Team: Alison

Hello and welcome to our Meet the Team series, in which we aim to give you deeper insight into the minds and personalities of those who make up this eclectic, close-knit group. We are developers, marketers, and technical support engineers, and at work we craft everything from Microsoft reporting APIs to mobile email applications. And outside of work? Let’s just say racing against the machine during hackathons, building architecturally sound beer towers during retros, and paddling down the Charles during the warmer months are simply the beginning.

Say hello to Product Manager Alison – belovedly known as author of the Pitan the Pivot Mage series. When she’s not supplying delicious office treats, you can find her scrumming in Trello, pumping out Pitan posts, or answering your questions on the OfficeWriter Answers site.

1. What do you do?
That depends on which hat I’m wearing. On Monday, I write tutorials. On Tuesday, I shift to designing sales demo or web site content. By Wednesday I’m managing a product backlog. Thursday is all about answering technical support questions and writing sample code. I wrap it up on Friday with some PivotTable blog posts.

2. What are you listening to right now?
I’m oscillating between the action theme from Doctor Who and the opening to an anime, Aquarion Evol.

3. If you could build any app, what would it be and why?
I would definitely want to build a mobile app that could analyze a reference picture of a character and generate a list of color swatches from the images. On top of that, it would allow you to switch between ‘picture colors’ and ‘real life colors’. For example, a bright yellow in a cartoon image would correspond to a golden blonde in real life.

4. When you were 5 what did you want to be and why?
I wanted to be a marine biologist because that was the perquisite for training Orcas at Sea World.

5. If you were a beer what would you be and why?
Apple juice – because I don’t drink and no one would be able to tell the difference visually.

6. What is your favorite tech blog and why?
Contextures has all my answers when PivotTables stump me. Continue reading Meet the Team: Alison →

Meet the Team, Office Life

Meet the Team: Paula

Hello and welcome to our Meet the Team series, in which we aim to give you deeper insight into the minds and personalities of those who make up this eclectic, close-knit group. We are developers, marketers, and technical support engineers, and at work we craft everything from Microsoft reporting APIs to mobile email applications. And outside of work? Let’s just say racing against the machine during hackathons, building architecturally sound beer towers during retros, and paddling down the Charles during the warmer months are simply the beginning.

Meet Paula – Our Talent Acquisition Manager (creator of Networking on PAR) with a knack for Twitter and crafting the tastiest pasta salad (among other delectable BBQ treats) you’ll ever eat.

1. What do you do?
As Senior Talent Acquisition Manager for SoftArtisans and Riparian Data, I am responsible for sourcing talent to match the needs of my team.  You can find me on social media (ln|t), attending events and getting ready for our next board game night!

2. When you were 5 what did you want to be and why?
A vet because I thought you could have as many puppies as you wanted.

3. Fill in the blank. Contrary to popular belief I ____.
Am not Katara.

4. Describe your perfect Saturday afternoon in 10 words or less.
Cooking a big meal to share with family and friends.

5. Describe your personal style in one word.
Tall.

6. What is your worst nightmare?
Getting taller.

Continue reading Meet the Team: Paula →

Featured, Office Life

Meet the Team: Whitney

Hello and welcome to our Meet the Team series, in which we aim to give you deeper insight into the minds and personalities of those who make up this eclectic, close-knit group. We are developers, marketers, and technical support engineers, and at work we craft everything from Microsoft reporting APIs to mobile email applications. And outside of work? Let’s just say racing against the machine during hackathons, building architecturally sound beer towers during retros, and paddling down the Charles during the warmer months are simply the beginning.

This week we caught up with Support Engineer, Whitney.

1. What do you do?
At SoftArtisans, I’m a developer and I fight with C# all day.  Outside work I have far too many hobbies to fit into my spare time.*

2. What are you listening to right now?
The Decemberists – One Engine .  I swear I liked them before The Hunger Games.  …But probably not before they were cool.

3. When you were 5 what did you want to be and why?
A vet, I think?  I didn’t actually decide to get into CS until I graduated high school and had no choice but to select a major.  For something essentially pulled from a hat, it’s been going rather well.  I also contemplated being a music major for awhile, until I realized that would require practicing.

Continue reading Meet the Team: Whitney →