- Campus:
- IU Bloomington
Could you tell me a bit about your career journey and how you got to where you are today?
I went into college as a computer science undergrad, and I knew that I was going to do some kind of software development career. I had two internships, one at Walt Disney World Resorts in Florida and one at National Instruments in Austin, TX. Both of those internships were not the best experience, just because I didn’t like sitting at a computer all day, in a cubicle, just staring at a screen, typing away by myself. Disney did work their magic to make the internship more interesting, but the actual day-to-day was not that exciting.
I got married in 2009, right before I graduated from Rose-Hulman. After graduation, my wife wanted to pursue grad school at IU Bloomington, despite me having two job offers in-hand. We decided to go to Bloomington, where I landed this job at IU doing software development. IU has treated me well and I enjoy the work, so I have stayed. It wasn’t really planned to come here to do this kind of work. I’m doing web application development, and while my education didn’t directly cover that, it has worked well. I’ve made friends here, I got involved, and IU has been great to me with the benefits, so I didn’t have a reason to leave. I will have been here 13 years this June.
Could you explain some of the responsibilities of your role at IU?
The vast majority of my day is spent coding, which is exciting. Most of it is web development, but I occasionally get to work on our IU Mobile app as well. I’m doing HTML, CSS, and Java coding. We have standard meetings, there’s a daily status meeting every morning, we do backlog refinement meetings, and sprint review and planning meetings once every other week. Some miscellaneous tasks I do throughout the day include code reviews, helping with 2nd-tier technical support, and working with the other developers to solve tough problems.
I’m responsible for managing deployment of new code into production. The team rotates responsibility for deploying new code out to production, so we each don’t have to do it as often. Tomorrow is my day, so I get to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to babysit the servers as the new code comes out to make sure nothing bad happens. If something goes wrong, then it’s my responsibility to make sure it gets corrected before 6am. We share responsibilities for all of the applications our team is in charge of. We maintainsix to seven applications, which include One.iu, IU Classifieds, IU Mobile, IU Verify, and a couple others. Primarily, we are focused on One.iu right now because we are rewriting all of the administrative screens to align with the new design framework.
You mentioned you’ve been working remotely for a while, how did that start and how has the experience been for you?
I started working remotely when it was pretty rare to fully work remotely. I started in the fall of 2013, when my wife and I moved to France for a short time. It worked out so great that when we came back, I told IU I wanted to buy a house up in Avon instead of staying in Bloomington and no one had a problem with it. Since COVID, a lot of people have started working remotely, which I think is great. I’m not too sure which roles are eligible for remote work, but I know nearly everyone in my team works remotely at least part of the time, and more than half of us are 100% remote. We have one person near Chicago and one in Colorado on our team. It works just as effectively, if not more effectively as being in the office. Now there is an official remote work agreement everyone has to sign since COVID, but I don’t see that as an impediment to working remotely if you want to.
Do you think working remotely makes it more difficult to be involved in staff organizations?
There are a lot of things that are more difficult, such as meeting in Bloomington for some team-building or casual get-togethers. My time to go meet everyone will be events like Statewide IT. That’s my time to get all my social interactions. My team does monthly happy hours over Zoom, so we will get on Zoom, hang out, and talk about whatever personal projects we’ve been working on, or any good news that’s happened, and catch up. That does help build some camaraderie, which you would otherwise get by walking in the halls and bumping into people. Overall, just like with everything else, I’d say there are pros and cons.
How well do you think IU supports the LGBTQ+ community?
For some background, I am transgender and lesbian. I have typically felt uncomfortable in groups labelled as for women (think IUWIT), and being on a team of all men, I was wary about coming out and being visible. As far as IU goes, I honestly didn’t have much hesitation because I knew so many supportive people outside my team. I’ve known people from different areas that I'm involved with such as ITLC and the Diversity & Inclusion Action Team. I also got to know Renee Petrina and some other people who were already involved in IUWIT, so I feel more comfortable participating in these groups. However, anything outside of IU, I would be a little hesitant. I know a couple other transgender people that I have spoken to or read comments they’ve made that they are also quite uncomfortable with organizations labeled specifically for women. They feel like they may not be included for one reason or another, or maybe they’re nonbinary, and don’t feel like the “women” label includes them. At least for me personally at IU, I haven’t had trouble.
More broadly speaking, I think IU does a very good job supporting LGBTQ+ students, faculty, and staff. There are student organizations on campus, there are inclusive policies in place, and there are guidance and resources online. Granted, things may not be perfect, but I do see efforts being made to improve things.
Do you have any advice for combatting uncomfortable situations at work or in team environments?
I am still trying to figure that out myself, honestly. My team is all, as far as I know, cis-het white men, so it can be uncomfortable to ask them to gender me correctly and stand up for myself. Sometimes it can also feel like my opinions are not considered as valid, but I have not figured out a good strategy yet. However, I would say, don’t lose your confidence in yourself just because your value isn’t recognized. I do have some privilege in the fact that I have been working with the same people for so long that I have built up a rapport with them, which has helped.
I don’t have the long history that most women have of working in a male-dominated industry, especially in technology. I haven’t had much time to work through these problems myself or had any mentors to lean on, although I know I have access to many through the ITLC, IUWIT, and the Center. So that would be my advice, to seek out mentors who have experience with the sort of uncomfortable situations you experience.
What are some interests or hobbies you do in your free time?
Hobbies would be a great thing to have, but I have two young kids who take up the majority of my time. When I do get some time to myself, I’ll play piano, I like to read, get outdoors, work out, and more. I’ve been working on a decorative piece for my son’s room. It’s a cloud decoration with different light up functions that I’ve been working on and off for the past two years. I hope to finish it while he’s still young enough to really enjoy it.