- Fun Facts:
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Direct quote: “Is this the part where we make me sound more human and less computer science?”
I am a former gamer. I love rock climbing, playing classical guitar, cooking on rare occasions, and biking. I am from Pennsylvania. When I was growing up, I had a goldfish that lived for 13 years. I enjoy eating (at restaurants). I travel occasionally to Hong Kong, but should probably make a point of taking more trips. I like exploring places, like when I go biking around.
What initially drew you to apply to work at Medallia?
The technology we use and the large amounts of data we have to work with. My graduate studies involved distributed databases and machine learning, and since Medallia handles large quantities of data, I felt like I would be doing really interesting work here.
What other opportunities and fields were you considering?
I was considering larger companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yelp, and Twitter. I wasn’t looking at raw startups because I considered them too risky. Medallia offers the best of both worlds as a small company that has established itself.
Why did you ultimately choose Medallia?
I ultimately chose Medallia because of the small team size, plus the actual impact that you have since, unlike other startups, we have real customers. Sites like Yelp and Twitter have users, but I wouldn’t call them customers—there is a different objective in retaining users vs. providing useful insights from large data analysis. Medallia offered more purpose.
How has your experience measured up to your expectations? What surprised you or has surprised you over time?
My expectations as a new college grad were different and largely undefined. I expected to gain experience, and this has definitely been the case—I’m learning new things all the time. What surprised me most was how free we were to use and improve open-source tools or to develop solutions in-house—basically solving problems in our own way. Medallia offers its employees greater autonomy than most other places.
How does your experience at Medallia compare to your friends’ experiences in other jobs?
I have much more impact in my job, both in terms of responsibilities and projects, as well as involvement in non-engineering projects, such as recruiting. Also, as opposed to other startups where this level of impact, agility, and flexibility would be more similar, at Medallia the engineers have extensive experience, and I can rely on their expertise to ensure that the code I write is well designed and easily maintainable.
How would you describe your responsibilities at Medallia?
As an engineer, we’re responsible for the entire product. We participate in the design of a feature, implement it, test it thoroughly with automation, and deploy and maintain it properly. Our role is not just to solve problems, but also to proactively look for and address issues before they become problems. We also have the freedom to find new ways to improve our application or engineering processes along the way.
What was your job prior to Medallia?
Prior to Medallia, I was completing a bachelor’s then a master’s in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. I also had a summer internship at a very corporate-minded, large software company.
What are some similarities/differences between your past and current roles?
The company I interned for was good at using engineers to drive profit. It was extremely profit oriented. There were a lot of opportunities there, and engineers could explore virtually any area of computers that they wanted to get into. It was also very rigid in terms of scheduling and planning, and was bureaucratic to the point of hindering creativity. At my old company, you were just a number working on a small part of something larger, rather than owning projects as you do at Medallia.
What is the best thing about working at Medallia?
The best thing is the people. I know it’s kind of a cliché, but here we have an amazing combination of people who are always willing to help each other but are also able to because they have the right level of experience. Everyone has a really open mindset, communication is excellent, and ego never gets in the way when you’re working with others.
Also, the large amounts of numeric and free-text data that Medallia works with allows for the application of cutting-edge research. Medallia gives you the freedom to pursue more research-oriented challenges, but the results are seen and used by people who can act on those insights.
How would you describe Medallia to your friends? What would you want them to know about Medallia?
Computer science friends: Repeat above benefits.
Non–computer science friends: We have a competition-grade ping-pong table.
