Engineers spend most of their time constructing unique and engaging products — so it’s only right that their traditions and methodologies be the same way. Developers at five Chicago companies provided insight into their favorite team past-times and the most interesting projects they’re working on. For all you pragmatic programmers out there, take a look and see what life is like at these fast-growing tech companies.
Software Engineer James McGuire loves the fact that he and his team members at Echo Global Logistics take time to unwind after work and get their game on. Between bonding with coworkers over party games or working to keep their engineering peers from getting burnt out, there’s a sense of camaraderie at the company.
What is your favorite engineering team tradition at your company?
My favorite tradition is game night, which occurs after-hours a couple times per month. The games range from eight-player video games to three-hour tabletop games where the team has to work together to overcome whatever challenge they’re facing. It’s a great way to fortify the team as we work together to tackle similar challenges facing the business.
We are incorporating new architectural patterns, reducing developer fatigue and improving the business’ technology offerings.”
What is the coolest or most challenging project you’re working on right now, and what do you enjoy most about it?
I am currently working with the platforming team to deploy and scale our legacy code in ways that are more manageable. What I enjoy most is that we are incorporating new architectural patterns, reducing developer fatigue and improving the business’ technology offerings.
It’s one thing to celebrate the success of a project’s completion — it’s another bring in team members from other areas of the business and let them share in the win too. Optiver’s Trading Tools Software Engineer Nate Langolf said one of the best parts of finishing a project with his team is sharing their knowledge and experiences with others and digesting their interpretations.
What is your favorite engineering team tradition at your company?
I really enjoy the time surrounding the release of a new or improved application. Everyone on the team is motivated by solving problems, so when one of us makes a change that brings us one step forward or frees us from a long-standing problem, we knowledge-share with our colleagues. This gives us an additional chance to gather feedback and share what we learned from the project. After our changes go live, we also stay in close contact with traders and get immediate feedback as our application runs in real time.
When one of us makes a change that brings us one step forward or frees us from a long-standing problem, we knowledge-share with our colleagues.”
What is the coolest or most challenging project you’re working on right now, and what do you enjoy most about it?
As a market maker, Optiver’s pricing accuracy and latency is what sets us apart. Recently, I began working on improving the speed and automation of our pricing infrastructure. Iterating on this system requires extensive collaboration with various trading and development teams as well as a continuous challenge of the status quo. The scope of the project and the direct impact it has on the business make for an especially exciting challenge.
Clearcover’s Acquisition Team Lead Jeff Kantarek said his team at the insurance company takes Slack seriously and expands their internal emoji library all the time. But outside of adding impromptu pixelated characters to their communication hub, his team is also hard at work scaling their state launches.
What is your favorite engineering team tradition at your company?
We have a pretty strong Slack culture and encourage everyone to create or bring over emojis that they’ve used in the past. My all-time favorite is “:little-mac:” — perfect for nearly any occasion. If someone says, “Why isn’t there an emoji for this,” you can almost always expect someone to fix that in a short amount of time.
Designing a system that is simple to approach but powers complex behavior has been both challenging and rewarding.”
What is the coolest or most challenging project you’re working on right now, and what do you enjoy most about it?
The acquisition team is heavily focused on ramping up state launches and designing a scalable process. We’ve set a goal to create each state launch in a maximum of two weeks, and each one can be completed by any junior developer. Each state has its own special considerations and differences, but still boils down to the same factors. Designing a system that is simple to approach but powers complex behavior has been both challenging and rewarding.
Showing off can be really cool. Software Engineering Manager Afra Ahmad at OneMain Financial said he appreciates the fact that his team members at the lending company have the freedom to tool with and showcase whatever new technology they’re working on. And these initiatives ripple throughout the entire organization.
What is your favorite engineering team tradition at your company?
I look forward to our frequent demo days. Any engineer can demo either a project they’re working on or a technology they think is beneficial to use. I have learned quite a bit from the technologies showcased, such as Ruby on Jets and Python tooling.
Any engineer can demo either a project they’re working on or a technology they think is beneficial to use.”
What is the coolest or most challenging project you’re working on right now, and what do you enjoy most about it?
I am currently implementing a NoSQL database solution to offload heavy tables from the main database server. The part I enjoy most is learning the flexibility of such a solution when used correctly and also the impact it will have across the OneMain organization when we introduce it to others.
Teamwork makes the dream work, and for Full Stack Engineer Clayton Turner at RedShelf, that’s been one of the best parts of a project he’s been working on lately. Turner has been teaming up with people from many areas of the business for a number of reasons and has enjoyed combining forces across the company.
What is your favorite engineering team tradition at your company?
There’s nothing quite like grilling with the team on our River North rooftop during the beautiful spring and summer months. It’s always a nice break to step away from the daily grind and relax with my team and get to know each other on a more personal level.
I’ve been working on our content delivery system and have had the opportunity to work with stakeholders I wouldn’t normally interact with.”
What is the coolest or most challenging project you’re working on right now, and what do you enjoy most about it?
I’ve been working on our content delivery system and have had the opportunity to work with stakeholders I wouldn’t normally interact with. From working with the UX and product team on figuring out the best ways to implement workflows in an agile environment, to collaborating with the sales team to make sure our end-to-end process makes sense, I’ve enjoyed being a part of a cross-collaborative effort. Also, the new system is a completely new set of workflows that we had to take a unique approach to developing, so it’s been a perfect combination of cool and challenging.
