My name is Jeremy and I've just been adopted into the Wildbit family! I live outside Charlotte, NC with my beautiful wife Amy. We have two boys. Moses (3) who loves dinosaurs. And Judah (1) who loves to eat rocks. We are hoping Judah chooses a different hobby later in life. Dropping one passion for another is something I'm very familiar with.
I've never really known what I wanted to do when I grew up. Each job I had was added to a growing list of "Professions I do not like". I've performed a wide range of work including Radio DJ, Telecom, Surveyor, Upholstery, and an embarrassingly brief stint as a Ballroom Dance Instructor.
In 2008 I joined a progressive software company called Daxko. This is where my story turns interesting. After three years in Customer Support, I was gifted an opportunity to join the Quality Assurance Team. What?!?! Why would someone with a Liberal Arts degree in Communication be given a spot on the Engineering Team?
Well, my team lead Jason thought it would be good to hire someone already familiar with our products/customers and teach them how to build software the right way. This is where my education started. It was like college, except that I wanted to be there. And instead of paying for tuition, they were paying me!
I learned about the principles of Agile. We used Scrum like training wheels to keep from falling over. As our team matured we took the training wheels off and modified Scrum to better suit our way of working. I got to serve as scrum master and learned that asking great questions is often better than giving great answers.
I was introduced to James Bach and exploratory testing, performance testing APIs, and using Ruby to automate manual regression. At this same point in time, I decided to give up my personal hobby: drinking booze. I only mention it to say that when I gave up drinking I didn't have anything to replace it with. So learning about technology became my new hobby.
I first heard about Wildbit from my best friend Ryan. Wildbit is a super unique company, and much like my fellow team members, I was first attracted to Wildbit because of their values. While finding a company that lists similar values on their website may not be too difficult. Finding a company that actually lives up to them feels impossible. So when I learned about their search for a QA Engineer, I jumped in.
As the newest member of the family, I have the most to learn. But here's a few things that I've already figured out. Our products are amazing: we take the time to build things the right way. Our people are brilliant without being jerks. And the Wildbit brand is not a marketing gimmick, it is really who they aim to be.
Check out this snippet from our guidelines on flexible work hours “If you find you are not naturally motivated or you are not enjoying your work, let's fix that instead of creating rigid policies.” A company committed to remote work whose default position is to trust their people? Sign me up.
I love what I get to do every day. Partnering with developers & designers to make things more beautiful is really fun. Plus, I get to work with Igor! I'm very fortunate to have been offered this spot on our team. Not only have I been invited into the Wildbit family, but I get to be part of the team helping people create and ship better software. Awesome!