What do the career path and day-in-the-life look like for a Director of National Hospital Growth at PatientPing?

We connected with Nolan Kelly to find out!

Also, PatientPing is hiring! Click here for all of the company’s job openings!

Where did you go to college?  What did you study and what were some of your initial jobs out of school?  

Boston College, Carroll School of Management with a Marketing concentration.  My initial job out of undergrad was at a consumer marketing agency in Boston. I was fortunate to align myself with one of the SVPs who was starting a healthcare practice within the agency.  Both my parents and my older brother are clinicians, so there was this innate interest in joining this emerging healthcare marketing group. I quickly got plugged into client assignments across health systems, pharma, payer, policy work, and medical devices.  I’d say that diversity of work was the catalyst for my desire to learn more about how these disparate areas all worked together to deliver positive patient experiences.

What has attributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?  

In the first few years of my career, I had the opportunity to work for incredibly smart, committed, and hands-on leaders. I was young and impressionable, and they were willing to help me learn, bring me into many c-suite and senior executive meetings and strategic planning initiatives.  It forced me to mature professionally very quickly, exposed me to higher-level thinking, and definitely shaped how I approach business. It also had a lasting impression on my management style.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Director of National Hospital Growth at PatientPing?  

At its most basic level, I am responsible for building and managing the team that sells PatientPing’s solution to hospitals and health systems across the country.  We have growth goals to hit and I need to make sure the team is organized, aligned, and ready to achieve the goals. More broadly, I have the responsibility of helping inform our cross-functional teams about market trends, customer needs, product opportunities, where we should prioritize/invest, and more.  

Any tips for someone considering a career in sales for a high-growth organization?  

Step outside the concept of a comfort zone - you can’t have one if you want to be successful in sales for a high-growth organization.  Ask questions and be studious. Absorb as much as you can. Be flexible, courteous, respectful, and live up to your word. Every customer is different, every opportunity is different, and it’s your job to assess those dynamics quickly, pivot where needed, take punches, and solve problems.  Always take full accountability. On our Growth team, everyone has a specific job to do. If you can’t get it done, no one is there to do it for you. Lastly, find your own motivations and stay true to them. Success is binary - you either got it done or you didn’t - so you need to find wins and celebrate them along the way, it’s the only way to keep energy and optimism while moving forward.

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Coffee, splash of milk. I generally stick to 1 cup a day.

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

1. Building the team that’s going to win deals and build our customer network.  

2. Helping the team win deals and build our customer network.

3. Feeling the incremental progress each day that is contributing a much bigger mission.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

• I have 3 little boys, so everyday starts by 6 AM with someone jumping on me in bed.

• Once I’m awake, I’m on email and slack. I’m not really proud of that, it’s a bad habit. I prob do 10-15 min of work before getting out of bed.

• When I can, I try to sneak in a few miles on the treadmill.

• I live south of Boston, so I take the Commuter Boat up from Hingham. It’s some of the most productive time of my day.

• Once in the office, it’s a race, my calendar is filled with meetings that support the growth of our team and business. I consider my commute time my “blocked” time where I get an hour at the beginning of the day and an hour later in the day to catch up on any open items.  

• I try to sneak out of the office early so I can get home for dinner with my wife and kids.  This is one of the only non-negotiables for me. I’m going to get home to spend some time with my family and, at the very least, be a part of dinner and bedtime.  

• Read books to kids and get them in bed

• Hang with my wife - catch up - might be over a show, a drink, or a sports game on TV.  

• Emails and unfinished work before calling it a day.

Any productivity hacks?

There are no hacks to hard work.

What are the two apps that you can’t live without?

1. LinkedIn

2. Spotify

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

I’m most proud of what we’re building at PatientPing. This is no small feat - engaging and connecting the largest and most respected health systems and the community of providers who help them care for shared patients. What we are doing is transforming healthcare and I’m so proud of that endeavor.

Colin Barry is the Content Manager on VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash

Images courtesy of Nolan Kelly

What do the career path and the day-in-the-life look like for a Solutions Architect at Ordergroove? 

We connected with Andrew Magne to find out!

Click here for a list of job openings at Ordergroove!

Where did you grow up?  What did your parents do for work?  

The great state of Minnesota (winless in major sports championships since 1991). My dad worked in asset management and my mom runs a small company that produces custom apparel.

Where did you go to college?  What did you study there and what was your first job out of school?

I went to school at the University of Southern California and studied economics. My first job was at a sports marketing firm in their analytics/measurement division where we helped brands understand the return on their sponsorship spend.

How did you get into the tech industry and what brought you to Ordergroove?

I liked my job but was ready to move to a smaller company where I could have a larger impact. Ordergroove was included on a list of fast-growing startups in the NYC area so I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring. I didn’t have much in the way of tech experience beyond a few CS classes I had taken for fun in college, but I’m sure glad Ordergroove took a chance on hiring me.

What are the details in terms of your role and responsibilities as a Solutions Architect?

Ordergroove is creating a new category of commerce and my responsibility is to help support the technical side of our sales cycles as we bring new brands and retailers onboard. Our team strives to ensure our platform is a good technical fit for the prospective client as well as educate them on the features and functionality that will drive their success.

You’ve been promoted a couple of times since joining Ordergroove. What advice would you give to others who are looking for a rapid ascent in terms of their career path?

My advice would be to keep an open mind and be opportunistic when you see a match between a business need and your career interests. If you try to define a rigid career path too far in advance you may leave yourself blind to a role that would have been a great fit (this is as true for the company as it is for the employee).

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Cold brew on tap, please.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

If I’m on the road I’ll try to knock out as much work as possible prior to the day’s agenda, meet with the brand or retailer(s) on site, and cross my fingers for good WiFi on the flight back to New York. If I’m in the office, I’m usually meeting with cross-functional teams to determine the best technical approach to serve the needs of our current and prospective clients.

Any productivity hacks?

One good tip is to respond to each email or Slack immediately (< 2 minutes) or save it for a thoughtful response later. Don’t get stuck wasting 10 minutes deciding whether to respond.

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

First ever employee in my role at Ordergroove.

Who do you admire or call upon for professional advice?

Beyond my teammates at Ordergroove, I’d probably have to say my mom.

Alexander Culafi is Producer & Editor for VentureFizz. He also edits and produces The VentureFizz Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @culafia.

What do the career path and the day-in-a-life look like for the VP of Cloud Operations at EverQuote?

We connected with Matt Young to find out!

Also, EverQuote is hiring! Click here for all of the company’s job openings.

Where did you grow up?  What did your parents do for work?  

New Jersey is the first place I remember. In 4th grade we moved to Dryden, a very small town outside Ithaca, NY.  From grades 4-8 I went to a small church school in a renovated barn. There were seven kids in my 8th grade class. I attended a public high school, with 133 kids in my graduating class in 1994, then left behind cows, corn, and countryside and headed to college.

My father was an inspector for animal food mills and later a Feed Microscopist - “QA zoomed in.”  My mother is a first generation American who grew up working my grandparent’s flower farm in NJ. She continued the family business as a florist and caterer with my Aunt. I grew up prepping massive quantities of food and flowers for weddings and parties.  

In the first half of college, I frequently went home for the holidays to work with food+flowers to fund food+school.

Where did you go to college?  What did you study?

I attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), starting as a physics major. After a semester I switched to Chemistry. Two-and-a-half years into my undergrad I felt that while Chemistry is fascinating it wasn’t my passion. I was staying up WAY too late at night playing with the unix servers on campus. Rendering raytraced images took DAYS on my i386 and a few hours when the servers were idle at night.

I pushed my own reset button, changed my major to Computer Science, and took a full year off.  I joined an enterprise storage management startup (HighGround Systems) writing test automation code. When I returned to school I transitioned to an engineering role and worked 20-40 hrs/week while finishing my degree. I found that the job as an engineer lent perspective and context to what I was studying...and food.

As part of my time at WPI I did 2 projects with companies. The first was in London developing a marketing and business plan for a research group’s Internet rollout (1998). The second was with an industrial automation company (Intellution, 1999) where we designed and implemented a “Distributed Object Brokerage” - connecting management software to robot controllers via C++, DCOM, and graph theory.

What was your path from 2000 to EverQuote?

After graduating I moved to Seattle to join Microsoft. I spent six years on a hard real-time OS team (Windows CE): two years working on a kernel debugger, a profiler, and compilers, and another four in a “boots on the ground” engineering role. The latter was formative for me.

If we were engaged, a partner’s project was behind/failing or was using a new OS feature. My job was a mixture of debugging, diagnostics, training, and acting as an engineering conduit between our engineering teams creating the OS and hardware companies wanting to use it. I was able to work on video streaming devices, VoIP, routers, and some of the first “personal digital assistants” - precursors to smartphones. I got to learn ARM & MIPS and work at all layers of the stack from hardware to UI.

I found that I loved giving talks and working across teams/companies in a technical capacity. I discovered that I loved jumping on planes and not knowing the local language. I enjoyed debugging thorny issues with others more than creating new ones. I still do.

I moved to Germany and spent a couple years working with a Research team on embedded hypervisors and P2P networking research. I then returned to the US in customer facing support and engineering roles for MS’s application virtualization products. Again I gravitated to deeply technical and customer facing teams and tasks. After nearly a dozen years with Microsoft life events motivated a change.

I spent the next 7 years with Dell, VMware, and Red Hat. Virtualization, IaaS, orchestration systems and dev tooling formed a common thread throughout. I had a chance to learn and work with NetBSD, Linux, Windows, OpenStack, and Azure in a variety of languages. Throughout I found myself drawn to collaborative opportunities vs. individual contributor roles.

What has contributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?

Being enthusiastic about bridging traditional roles and intentionally seeking out opportunities in multidisciplinary settings is perhaps a factor. Nearly every job where I’ve been successful has been a blend of Dev/QA/PM/Support. When an organization’s culture rewards solving problems irrespective of “role,” I have been the most engaged. It’s one of the many reasons I’m so excited to be a part of EverQuote.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as VP of Cloud Operations at Everquote?

Our team combines aspects of Site Reliability Engineering, Service Design Consultancy, and Operations. We...

• Ensure that our infrastructure continues to enable our growth and business objectives.

• Create, curate, and champion patterns and best practices for cloud native designs.

• Partner with our engineering teams to produce solutions that are scalable, observable, and sustainable.

• Provide development tools, systems, and methodologies that allow our engineering teams to manage their own services in production.

• Manage our infrastructure, responding to operational issues that impact our workloads.

• Manage our relationships and costs with cloud providers and vendors.

My role at EverQuote is to build, grow, and sustain a team that achieves these goals in an open, transparent, and inclusive way.

We’re hiring. Join us!

Any tips for someone considering a career in Engineering?

• Be Kind. Listen first. Assume good intentions.

• Be open to new ideas.

• Make sure that you are solving the right problem(s).

• Articulate and communicate your ideas. Ask for feedback.

• Draw diagrams and pictures.  Often.

• Be curious.

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Coffee (hot or cold).  Aspirational goal: more water, less caffeine.

What time do you get into the office? When do you leave?

I arrive between 8:00 - 10:00, and leave 4:00 - 8:00. I’m a single dad with what appears to be an irregular weekly schedule. It’s a very regular 14-day schedule.

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

1. Facilitating the professional growth of others.

2. The sheer geekly awesomeness of modern infrastructure design. We are at a point where ideas that have been “the future” for decades are finally possible.  Lately for me this is k8s, istio, opencensus, go, spark, and a pile of other fun stuff.

3. The opportunity to provide tools & techniques that improve our developers’ experience and velocity.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

• Standup

• n * {1:1, planning, reading, writing, listening, learning, sharing, doing}

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?  

I usually log back in and sometimes stay up objectively up way too late - particularly if I’m doing dev stuff or learning new things. Finding balance isn’t something I’ve yet achieved.  I have been making inroads. There’s life going on out there!

Any productivity hacks?

• Sleep.

• Don’t boil the ocean when you need enough hot water to make tea.

• Done > perfect.  Iterate.

What are 3 apps that you can’t live without?

• EverDrive!

• Youtube (CNCF, MS, Google, KubeCon, k8s, tech talks, …)

• MyWeather (“shall I motorcycle now?”)

Colin Barry is the Content Manager on VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash

Images courtesy of Matt Young

What do the career path and the day-in-a-life look like for the Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Quick Base?

We connected with Neil Forbes to find out!

Also, Quick Base is hiring! Click here to see all of the company’s openings!

Where did you grow up?  What did your parents do for work?  

I grew up in North Kingstown, RI. My father was a middle school history teacher and later a high school guidance counselor. My mother was a middle school home economics teacher and later a high school art teacher.

Where did you go to college?  What did you study and what were some of your initial jobs out of school?

I majored in Art, Philosophy & Literature with a minor in Systems Engineering at the United States Military Academy at West Point. I later studied Film Directing and Production in UCLA’s Graduate Film Program. My first jobs after West Point were as a rifle platoon leader and mortar platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom I. While I was in grad school I did everything from assistant editing gigs for reality television shows to teaching film to working as a bouncer at night clubs and hotels.

What has attributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?

The leadership training I received at West Point, in Ranger School and through leading platoons in combat was second to none and greatly contributed to my success so far.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Quick Base?

• Collaborate with customer base to align our platform with their business needs

• Identify and share new ways that our customer base can leverage our platform

• Build, drive and report on my team’s pipeline

• Partner cross functionally with sales enablement, customer success, product, marketing, legal, finance, and ops to continue to drive efficiency in our sales team and sales process

• Hire, coach, mentor and retain exceptional sales talent

Any tips for someone considering a career in Sales?

I think there will always be a place in Sales for highly curious, technically savvy people with strong oral and written communication skills.

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Coffee

What time do you get into the office?

Between 7:30 and 8:30 most mornings. 

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

1. Helping people grow professionally

2. Collaborating with customers that are energized by our platform

3. Working in a market that is largely undefined with a platform that is the leader in that emerging space.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

• Supporting account executives and managers on customer calls or face to face engagements

• Working with account executives and managers to build effective account plans

• Inspecting and building a rolling 90-day forecast/pipeline

• 1:1s with managers and account executives

• Interviewing or phone screen prospective candidates for our team

What time do you head out of the office?

Between 5 and 6:30 most nights.

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?  

I log back in at night.

Any productivity hacks?

Meditation. Sometimes you only need 10 minutes of silence to look at a problem in a different way.

What are the 3 apps that you can’t live without?

1. Quick Base

2. Spotify

3. Audm

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

Seeing members of my team get promoted to run teams of their own here at QB.

Who do you admire?

I admire all members of my veteran extended family, but particularly those that are working day in and day out to overcome physical and/or psychological challenges that they developed overseas as a part of their service to our country.

Colin Barry is the Content Manager on VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash

Images courtesy of Neil Forbes

What do the career path and day-in-the-life look like for an Account Manager at SmartBear?

We connected with Christopher Collins to find out!

Also, SmartBear is hiring! Click here to see all of the company's openings!

Where did you grow up?  What did your parents do for work?  

I was born in West Roxbury, MA and grew up in a small town in Western Massachusetts. My parents are consultants in the engineering and software industries.

Where did you go to college?  What did you study and what were some of your initial jobs out of school?

I went to Saint Anselm College, where I studied Economics and Public Policy. Upon graduation, I wanted to take the time to explore different opportunities. I worked at the Department of Commerce, a small marketing firm, and coached lacrosse. Through coaching, I expanded my network and had the opportunity to meet with sales leadership at SmartBear. I left the meeting excited and inspired by this growing company and knew I had to get involved.

What has attributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?

They say curiosity kills the cat, but I would argue otherwise. If I had to boil my success down to one word it would be curiosity. This attribute has led me to challenge the status quo, continuously learn, and take risks.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have grown significantly in the year I’ve been at SmartBear and I attribute that success to the environment here. I am surrounded by intelligent, driven people. Coworkers in any department are always available to discuss ideas or questions I might have. Starting in business development taught me about the challenges our customers face, and how we can help improve their everyday lives. My manager gave me a great foundation in software sales which I was then able to build upon.

Due to the growth of our organization, I was asked to become a team lead, managing 10 other team members on the US Sales Development Team. And more recently, I have been promoted to Account Manager. Though each role has been demanding, I work with a great team that ensures success.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Account Manager at Smartbear?

I work with customers in highly regulated industries, such as aerospace and defense, banking, and aviation, to improve their software development process. This requires finding and connecting with the proper stakeholders to understand the issues they face and develop a possible solution.

Any tips for someone considering a career in your field?

This is a high paced environment. Be constantly curious and try to learn as much as you possibly can. Once you think you've learned enough, be prepared to adapt quickly. What works today, might not work tomorrow.  

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Coffee. Probably too much coffee.

What time do you get into the office?

8:15 AM

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

I’m motivated by the will to succeed, the desire to continue to learn, and seeing those I mentor succeed.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

Before I leave work, I make a list of everything I want to accomplish the next day.  When I arrive in the morning, I prioritize that list based upon any new emails or notifications I may have received and I hit the ground running!

What time do you head out of the office?

5:30

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?  

Will this be published? Then I am always available.

Any productivity hacks?

Butter in said coffee.

What are the 3 apps that you can’t live without?

News, Lyft, and Calculator

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

I most proud of my growth at SmartBear over the past year. I have been trusted with the responsibility of leading a team, and then earned the opportunity to contribute to one of the most profitable products.

Who do you admire or call upon for professional advice?

Both of my managers have been great resources. Each started where I was, and have established themselves as trusted voices at the company. I have yet to encounter a situation where I couldn't go to them and have an honest dialogue.

Colin Barry is the Content Manager to VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash.

Images courtesy of Christopher Collins

What do the career path and day-in-the-life look like for a Software Manager at Chewy?

We connected with Celia Courtright to find out.

Also, Chewy is hiring! Click here for all of the company's job openings.

Where did you grow up? What did your parents do for work?  

I grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. My parents were professors of Biology and Political Science. They were big proponents of learning math.

Where did you go to college? What did you study and what were some of your initial jobs out of school?

I went to Yale University for undergrad, where I majored in history. I also took a substantial number of CS courses, but Yale doesn’t give minors. My first job was in consulting as an analyst. I quickly switched from being the analyst to writing code.

After that, I went to a startup followed by some government work when I was in D.C. I also got an MBA from the University of Maryland, where I concentrated in IT and finance.

What has attributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?

I love solving problems and building solutions. From working in a lot of industries and roles – analyst, UI engineer, full stack engineer, QA engineer, data engineer, system architect – I can approach a lot of problems from all these perspectives and ensure my team is building something that is maintainable, testable, and reliable.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Software Manager at Chewy?

I put the building blocks for what we need to build in the proper execution order, keeping in mind technical dependencies and time to execute. I ensure “planned work” is broken down to levels that engineers can actually execute. I keep engineers in check to deliver projects by our committed dates. I work with the engineers reporting to me to grow their technical and business skills and advance their careers.

Any tips for someone considering a career in Software Management?

Work on different types of systems, in different languages, in different roles. There is something to learn in each of them and make it easier to understand why various elements are important.

Your role is to remove other people’s problems: conflicts with other people, problems with tools, and so forth.

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Mostly tea. Some soda, but I keep working on cutting down.

What time do you get into the office?

I’m in “early” just after 8 a.m.

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

• Building a system that makes users’ happier.

• Having a clear, actionable road map that I can dig into.

• Work camaraderie.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

My day starts before I’m in the office. I’m checking emails by 6 AM and leave the house at 7 AM to catch the train. Then I’ll spend my commute getting my calendar and to-do list in order and sending emails as needed.  

In the office, I spend time meeting with users or product managers on clarifying requirements and priorities. Then I’ll meet with engineers about technical decisions and project break down. I usually run scrum. I’ll have a couple “scrum of scrum” type meetings where we go over cross-team technical dependencies. If it’s my one-on-one day, I’ll spend a lot of time talking to my engineers about how they are progressing in their goals and any issues they have.

The remainder of the time is spent fixing any issues that come up, so the engineers can code unhindered, or a project can be unblocked. A lot of this is Jira management: creating, updating, documenting tickets. I’m rarely writing code or executing proofs-of-concept, but I will direct others in how to do these. Other times it’s writing up documentation or presentations of the work being proposed or being completed. It all depends where in the lifecycle various projects are.

When I leave the office, I have my off-line time until later, when I’ll finish up a couple tasks that I can do out of the office.

What time do you head out of the office?

Most days I leave about 4:30 PM.

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?  

I usually work 1-2 hours at night. The paperwork doesn’t usually get done while I’m in the office, so I spend the evening filing tickets of various sorts and reviewing others’ work.

Any productivity hacks?

Block time on your calendar for any task you need to do that will take more than five minutes. And delete or file all email that isn’t immediately needed. I almost never get to “inbox zero” but I’m happiest under “inbox 10”.

What are the 3 apps that you can’t live without?

• Fantastical. It has all my calendars (10!) combined and the natural language for entering new events is really useful.

• Evernote. My notes go everywhere on every device, so it’s easy to review even without my computer.

• Spotify

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

I mentored an off-shore (not contractor) team at a large multi-national corporation that had few coding skills at the outset, to executing a total rewrite of the BI reporting system. We integrated six completely different ERP systems from four countries into a cohesive interface that did not have 10,000 fields and everyone defining a different “truth”. It was the old way of doing things.

The end result was a fast, responsive, clear system everyone loved. It was hard work, as many on the business side had their reasons why field #5003 needed to be included, and why field #23 which was virtually identical could not be used. But, I eventually got them all to agree on the critical few requirements.

Along the way, the development team learned several programming languages, how to use source control, how to do code reviews, how to deploy code, and even some aspects of writing unit and integration tests.​
Who do you admire or call upon for professional advice?

I check in with some grad school colleagues from time to time.

Colin Barry is the Content Manager to VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash.

Images courtesy of Celia Courtright and Chewy

What do the career path and day-in-the-life look like for a Clinical Programs Manager at Wellframe?

We connected with Danielle Oaks to find out!

Also, Wellframe is hiring! Click here for all of the company's job openings.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in coastal southern Rhode Island.

Where did you go to college? What did you study and where did you end up after school?

University of Rhode Island to get my BA in Communication Studies. I also have a Master's in Public Administration (MPA). My first job after graduate school was with the Boston Public Health Commission's HIV/AIDS Services Division. I had a very diverse team of colleagues in terms of backgrounds and skill sets; I learned so much from them in that first role in the professional world.

What led you to your current role?

Within my role with the Boston Public Health Commission, I worked with a social services agency that served deaf consumers. It was my first time learning about that population, which is typically underserved and underresourced, especially when it comes to healthcare.

I eventually went back to school to become a sign language interpreter, and ended up working as a freelance medical interpreter. Sitting in doctor's offices and hospitals with patients, I saw the intersection of patients with low health literacy and clinicians juggling competing demands throughout the day. I wanted to work on creating and disseminating accessible, plain language health education so patients could be more empowered to take their health into their hands.

I saw an opportunity at Wellframe to be able to "say" to a larger patient population what I've wanted to say to the patients I've worked with: "Ask lots of questions. Write things down. Managing your healthcare can be so overwhelming." Because Wellframe creates a strong link between patients and their care team via the app's chat function, patients can begin growing in those self-advocating practices right in the app.

What has attributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?

Somewhere along the way, I learned to not worry so much about having a traditional career path. I have pursued opportunities based on my passion and curiosity. I also believe that my professional life is one way I live out my personal value of altruism, so I have followed that non-traditional path to places where I've seen a need for more equity in our healthcare system.

At 29, I left my job to travel around the world for a year. Though I knew it was a key time for me to continue advancing in my career, I also knew that I wouldn't have many opportunities for an adventure like that again. That year challenged and stretched me in myriad ways I apply to my daily work. So while I thought I was "taking a break" from my career, I was actually having experiences that would support and empower my future self.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Clinical Programs Manager at Wellframe?

Overall, I ensure that our condition-based clinical programs for use in the Wellframe app are delivered on-time and in-scope to our clients.

I supervise the development and maintenance of our programs and the project management processes that keep our team on track.

I also develop, document, and ensure the consistent use of our Wellframe style, voice, formatting, and health literacy/plain language conventions across our app content.

Any tips for someone considering a career in Project Management?

Listen to your colleagues. They can share valuable information on what they need to be successful so that you can iterate upon project management processes in ways that work for the team across the board. A project manager's role within a team is truly symbiotic: When everyone has what they need to do their job well, the project manager has succeeded!

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Creme de la Earl Grey tea. Black and strong.

What time do you get into the office?

Between 8 and 9 AM.

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

• My colleagues! They are a multidisciplinary team of brilliant, committed, all-stars.

• Our app users. When our services team shares quotes from them about how they're using Wellframe to reach their health goals, I melt.

• The mantra "health literacy for health equity". One of the things I love most about my role is my responsibility to ensure our content is accessible to everyone. Many populations experience gross health disparities in our country, and through providing plain language content at low reading levels, we can do our part to even out the playing field.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

Our team works at a fast pace, so a fair bit of my day is responding quickly to project updates, questions, or emails in order to keep things moving. On a typical day, my chunks of work may include: reviewing or editing new program articles, writing requirements for improvements to our Content Management System, outlining and prioritizing work for our remote medical writers, or planning out and whiteboarding our next month of projects and deadlines as a team.

What time do you head out of the office?

Somewhere between 5:00 and 7:00.

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?  

I typically shut work off completely when I'm home, unless there's a non-negotiable deadline.

Any productivity hacks?

When I'm having a productivity slump, I use the Pomodoro technique. I use the Tomato One app to time my work intervals and short breaks. Typically 25 min of focused work followed by a 5 min get-up-from-my-desk break.

I'm also not above bribing myself with the thought of an afternoon iced coffee break if I meet my productivity goals.

What are the three apps that you can’t live without?

• Wunderlist. I'm a big believer in the power of checklists.

• Flour Bakery. Ordering online and counter pick-up on the way into the office is a game-changer.

• Weather. I'm a bike commuter.

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

Coming to Wellframe in the early days (25 employees) and advocating from day one that we need to have a solid health communications strategy to ensure equitable access to health education across all our populations. Now we have a comprehensive style guide, a team of medical writers trained in our approach to plain language and design principles, and we begin talking about health literacy early in the process with prospective clients.

Who do you admire or call upon for professional advice?

I have some dear friends who are knocking it out of the park in their respective careers. I've worked with them all at one point or another, whether professionally or in volunteer work, and I don't hesitate to call them for advice or commiseration when faced with a work challenge.

Colin Barry is an Editor & Staff Writer to VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash

Images courtesy of Danielle Oaks

What do the career path and day-in-the-life look for a Lead Software Engineer at HealthcareSource look like?

We connected with Ryan Fournier to find out!

Also, HealthcareSource is hiring! Click here for all of the company's job openings.

Where did you grow up?  What did your parents do for work?

I grew up in the small town of Pepperell, Massachusetts. My mother is a systems analyst, and my father is a driver for a natural gas company.

Where did you go to college?  What did you study and what were some of your initial jobs out of school?

I went to the University of Massachusetts Lowell. I studied information technology with a focus in computer science-related courses. I also received a minor in business during my time there. Initially, during and right after college, I was doing freelance Web Development for small businesses and shortly after that, I began working at HealthcareSource as a Web Developer.

What has attributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?

I attribute most of my success to passion and flexibility. I have always wanted to develop software dating back to my early high school days, and I still love doing it today. For flexibility, I learned that when a challenge is presented, regardless of how hard the task may be, embracing it and completing it with a positive attitude will open more opportunities in the future. There will always be those assignments that nobody wants to do, but it’s essential to your managers, employees and beyond. In the end, it helps to drive others around you to do the same and has helped me become a better leader.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Lead Software Engineer at HealthcareSource?

My current position is half development and half management. I am fortunate to lead and architect/design multiple projects in parallel and contribute to the developing of those projects. In addition, I am involved with mentoring others on those projects and provide direction to help get their tasks completed.

Any tips for someone considering a career in Software Engineering?

Software engineering is full of opportunities. I believe anyone that has the passion for building software can do it with the correct training. You should never say to yourself "I am not a X type of person, so I don't think I could do it". There is no perfect "type" of attitude, personality, etc. to become a software engineer. If you can be passionate about becoming a software engineer, then one day you will!

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Both

What time do you get into the office?

I usually arrive between 7:30 and 9 AM. The time varies based on the day and my meeting schedule.

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

The first thing is the challenges that arise every day. In a typical day to day, something "unexpected" will happen large or small. This is not a negative thing, and it is just a challenge that I get to accept and work with my teams to solve.

The second thing is seeing growth. It is always exciting when you complete a tough task. It is even more exciting to help a direct report complete a task and see them get excited.

Lastly and most importantly client exposure. This can come in the form of face-to-face or simply word of mouth. Building software is a challenge, but in the end, there is no better feeling than seeing clients get excited to use things that I have built.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

A typical day to day starts with syncing up with my teams and the projects that we are working on. Afterward, I get the chance to help anyone directly who has questions or needs a hand with something. After that, I catch up on any code reviewing that needs to be completed. Once that is done, I work on my own development tasks. Staggered a crossed this typical day to day would be responding to emails, chat messages, and attending meetings. This, of course, is very flexible, and the order may vary based on meeting schedules.

What time do you head out of the office?

Typically, between 3:30 and 4:30 PM. This time also varies based on the day and my meeting schedule.

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?

I typically log in most nights of the week or at least have push notifications on my phone for my work emails and chats. This is however by choice as I have never been asked to work extra hours. I consider developing software also to be a hobby, not just a career.

Any productivity hacks?

Compiling some software solutions can take 30 seconds to 1 minute. Having two monitors is key. How long does it take you to read a typical email or respond to a quick chat? I bet there are some that take less than one minute. Multi-tasking can go a long way if it can be done without losing focus on your primary task. Also, as any Software Engineer will tell you, know and use your keyboard shortcuts!

What are the 3 apps that you can’t live without?

Amazon - As dangerous as "Buy with 1 click" might seem, it saves you a lot of time!

Marriott - I use this all the time to book hotels for traveling. The point system is great.

Uber - There is nothing better than staying inside warm until you can see your driver pulling up from the map!

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

I am most proud of my ability to grow professionally in a company. Over the last seven years it was not always easy, but it was always exciting. Going from doing small, simple tasks to architecting brand new software and enhancements to existing software is a huge step towards where I wanted to be. The tasks I was completing went from small client specific enhancements to large client specific enhancements. After that, I was working on small application enhancements which progressed towards larger enterprise-level enhancements. This eventually grew into building new large, enterprise level applications from the ground up, making architecture and design decisions while doing so. I have certainly had many different job titles, but the more important thing is I took the opportunities to grow professionally as they came which is something that is ultimately important not just to my company but to me personally as well.

Who do you admire or call upon for professional advice?

My mother has always been a great mentor to me. She understands the environment I work in and has also been through similar career advancements in the tech industry. Her encouragement has played a critical role in where I am today!

What does the career path and a day-in-the-life look like for a Technical Recruiter at athenahealth? We connected with Addison Maupin to find out.

Visit athenahealth's BIZZpage for their latest job opportunities!

Where did you grow up?  What did your parents do for work?  What was your very first job (before any internships)?

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. My dad owned his own landscaping company, and my mom was a teacher. My very first job was starting my own lawn mowing business.

You graduated from Boston University in 2008, right as the financial crisis was about to hit.  What were your initial jobs out of school and what did that period teach you?

My initial job out of school was to lead the writing program for an ESL tutoring organization. I was laid off after a year-and-a-half there. Following that, I was unemployed for the better part of a year. No period of time post-college has taught me more. It’s what I think of the most as I interact with job-seekers. I’ll never forget how brutal it was to search for a job during that time with minimal work experience that was relevant to the areas I wanted to take my career.

How did you get into recruiting?

I fell into it. I was called by a recruiting firm that was willing to train me, and I didn’t have many other options. I realized very quickly how much I loved it. It allowed me to help people every day, and eventually teach and train new employees on what I had learned. Those were two things I was interested in doing before starting my career in recruitment, so it was a natural fit.

What did you learn in terms of running recruitment process outsourcing programs at large companies like CVS Health, General Motors and other companies?

I learned that even the largest and most successful companies in a given industry undergo large-scale, tumultuous change with surprising frequency. Companies are merging, getting acquired, and buying out other companies like never before. It helps me greatly to structure conversations with people that get caught up in those situations and are affected personally by them.

Why did you decide to join the recruiting team at athenahealth and can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Technical Recruiter?

First and foremost, I wanted to join a software company that builds products that genuinely help people. Athenahealth is the epitome of that. Secondly, I wanted to find a team that I liked as much as my team at my last company, which set a high bar. I’ve never felt more aligned with an interviewing team as I did following my interviews with athenahealth.

As a Technical Recruiter, I support some of the most niche areas of the business, including Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform Engineering, and Business Intelligence. IaaS and Platform are working towards enabling microservice architecture via automated solutions across the entire technology stack. Business Intelligence is working towards providing reporting services across all areas of the business. Needless to say, it’s an exciting time to join any of these three groups!

I spend most of my time fleshing out a sourcing strategy for finding the best talent in these areas. I’m always exploring new ways to source, organize and present information, and collaborate with technical teams to build an airtight end-to-end hiring process.

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Coffee

What time do you get into the office?

Usually 8:30 AM.

What is something you look forward to everyday in your role?

Using tools that are new to me, and discovering ways of using them to make my life and my managers’ lives easier.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

I’ll always spend a chunk of time in the morning organizing my day. I’ll usually source and reach out to candidates in the morning, and schedule phone screens for the afternoon. These activities are spread around meetings I have with my internal team, and also with my hiring leaders. I do also spend time every day learning more about the roles i’m staffing for and the techniques I can utilize to best fill those roles. This involves watching online classes in Cloud Engineering and other subjects, watching product demos, etc.

What time do you head out of the office?

Usually about 5:30 PM.

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?  

I log back on. Often candidates cannot talk during working hours, so I need to make sure I make myself available to them as needed.

Any productivity hacks?

Yes - the system that I use to track all progress on a given position is the same tool I use to correspond/collaborate with the hiring teams that I work with. It’s saved me a lot of time.

What are the 3 apps that you can’t live without?

Mint, Spotify, and Reddit

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

My best stretch of hiring when I was supporting Equifax for Sevenstep. I went over 13 months without a single offer decline, which included a month with 18 hires (3 of which were SVP level, 1 of those 3 had been open for over two years before I filled it).

Who do you admire or call upon for professional advice?

My best friend Tom. He began his career for a marketing agency, and he’s made his way into a DevOps engineering role without a degree in Computer Science or any formal training on the subject. He’s a great example of how much someone can do professionally when they dedicate themselves to moving into areas that might be out of their comfort zone.

Keith Cline is the Founder of VentureFizz.  Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.

Image courtesy of Addison Maupin.

What does the career path and a day-in-the-life look like for a Senior Solutions Architect at Bullhorn? We interviewed Garrett Rapp to find out.

Visit Bullhorn's BIZZpage for their latest job opportunities!

Where did you grow up?  What did your parents do for work?  

I grew up in a town called Harvard, Illinois near the Wisconsin border. My mom was a teacher of all different types (she also has a law degree). Although we lived pretty far into the country, my dad worked as an attorney in downtown Chicago. As a kid, I spent a lot of time roaming around the woods surrounding our property and both reading and emulating Calvin and Hobbes comics. Pretty much the rest of my time was spent playing piano.

Where did you go to college?  What did you study and what were some of your initial jobs out of school?

I attended Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) in Bloomington, Illinois after a tough decision against pursuing piano performance. Instead, I enrolled at IWU as a biology major. By sophomore year, I switched to a religion major while I worked at the campus newspaper and the campus radio station. By junior year, I added an English and writing double major, and going into senior year, I was editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper. I still credit my time behind the wheel of The Argus as one of the most eye-opening and best educational experiences of my college and early career.

After school, I had a brief stint at the University of Chicago in a religion graduate program, from which I ended up withdrawing. At the same time, I was working the phones in an hourly job for TMC, a division of C.H. Robinson (a F250 transportation and 3PL company). I also did contract work in search engine optimization and content development for a company called L2T Media.

What has attributed to your success thus far and has helped propel you to the position you have now?

For better or worse, if I’d continued in the graduate program I was in, I wouldn’t be here now. That’s not to say I regret it at all though: I got some real exposure to handling debt, grappling with sunk costs (and their associated fallacies), and weighing my pride and the idea of quitting against the likely outcomes and my personal happiness. I made the right choice, and I believe that you can learn a lot from agonizing over hard choices.

There may be a way in which that decision caused me to double down at the job I was working. I really dedicated myself to my career, and over the next several years at TMC in Chicago, I worked my way through several promotions into a key role in their internal Operational Excellence group. This role stoked my interest in consulting as a general career path and in technology (especially automation) as a focus.

What made the most difference at that early stage of my career was an obsession with efficiency, including typing speed, automation, templates, and organization, which freed up time to self-teach. There was no problem that I wouldn’t try to figure out myself first before I asked someone else. If you can afford to spend some time digging around and trying things yourself, you can learn all you need. If you don’t have time to do that, you have to make time for it first.

Can you share the high-level responsibilities of your current position as Senior Solutions Architect at Bullhorn?

Solutions Architect is a broad term, which can mean varying degrees of pre-sale business engagement and technical delivery engagement depending on the business. At Bullhorn, the role truly encompasses both, but a descriptor that really resonates with me is “Solution Owner.”

If we’re implementing our software for a client, we have a project manager who is the delivery owner, but we, as Solution Architects, are responsible for helping to ensure that the holistic solution works for the client. This goes beyond ensuring that our software does what it’s intended to do as outlined in the statement of work. We also need to know what systems the client depends on for their day-to-day operations beyond our software and how our data needs to interact with theirs.

Any tips for someone considering a career in Client Services?

A genuine interest in positive interactions with other people, even those you know little or nothing about, is the single most important piece. Dedication to your customer’s success is table stakes; to excel, you have to put yourself and the urge to blame aside, and refocus on the problem you have in front of you.

If you can find a way to build a rapport with your clients, you’ll enjoy making them successful. Face-to-face interactions make this easier, so I’d recommend opportunities to connect in-person with your clients. Bullhorn hosts an annual conference series called Engage that creates an opportunity for everyone in our company to meet our customers, and it’s consistently a highlight for me.

Beyond this, building your personal toolset is a key ongoing project. Whatever your specialty, try to broaden your horizons. For me in the technology and software space, this means looking at methods of conflict resolution and negotiation (I love the book “Getting to Yes” by Roger Fisher and William Ury), trying to understand profit and loss and balance sheets, and brushing up on consulting skills. Some classic consulting case interview preparation and practice is invaluable for anyone who aims to grow their career.

Day in the Life

Coffee, tea, or nothing?

Lots of coffee! Not too picky about it - I’ll trade quantity for quality here.

What time do you get into the office?

About 7 a.m. I get a lot of mileage out of the first 1.5 hours of office time before my email, phone, and Slack messages start increasing. If I’m onsite with a client, the goal is arriving a minimum of 15 minutes before any meetings with them start, but ideally 20-25 minutes so I’m ready for a productive conversation.

What are three things that motivate you in your role?

• I care deeply about my team and my department. I’ll go a long way to help other people in my organization because I like seeing them succeed.

• Getting to be a problem-solver. In most jobs, when you get handed a problem, you actually have a plethora of resources, tools, and some time allocated to solving it. Real-life problems aren’t always that accommodating!

• Getting to meet, understand, and make a difference for customers directly. I love working with end users of our software (especially in-person, like during user acceptance testing cycles) and helping them learn new things about the tool.

Every day is different, but can you outline what a typical day looks like for you?

This varies throughout the year based on what project I’m working on, but it can involve:

• Participating in client calls (design and requirements, demos, handoffs, and defect reviews)
• Participating in internal calls with our sales department
• Creating statements of work for services engagements
• Creating functional specifications for custom apps and automations
• Troubleshooting or testing our software and custom automations
• Deploying our software

What time do you head out of the office?

Anywhere from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., depending on what’s going on that day. All bets are off when I’m on-site with a client though - spending from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. with a client in their “War Room” builds camaraderie!

Do you log back in at night or do you shut it down completely?  

I often will log back in at night, if only to file away emails that I don’t have to respond to, or hit off quick answers. I don’t find it stressful to keep up on things after hours - it’s worth it to me to have less noise waiting when I kick off in the morning. It’s relatively rare that I need to get on the phone with my project teams or clients for urgent matters. That said, as a project and implementation consultant, there will be occasional evenings or weekends for working on big deployments and go-lives.

Any productivity hacks?

• I couldn’t live without organized folders in my inbox, my desktop, my Google Drive, etc.

• Know when to block yourself off and “hide.” If I have a deep, detailed technical specification to write, I’ll minimize email and Slack, silence my phone, and work in an obscure conference room to avoid interruptions.

• I think it’s pretty common to freeze up or procrastinate when faced with tough problems. The key thing is to start on them anyway: start simple and don’t aim for perfection, but just start producing something. You can always improve it later, but you haven’t wasted time avoiding your main problem or displacing it with lower priority issues and requests.

What are the 3 apps that you can’t live without?

• Slack isn’t “the email killer.” Email has a very clear purpose and utility, but I do think that Slack is the ultimate office chat tool, and its iPhone app is excellent.

• For traveling, ExpenseIt lets me photograph receipts and automatically puts their costs, comments, and allocations into my open expense reports. It’s a great way to not lose track of the money I spend while traveling for business.

• I use the basic call, calendar, and mail apps a lot, but the other key apps in rotation would be podcasts and Spotify, especially for when I’m traveling.

What professional accomplishment are you proudest of?

Working my way into a technical and software specialist role over the years, given my lack of a technical and software degree, is my proudest accomplishment. The challenge now is staying up to speed!

Who do you admire or call upon for professional advice?

If I call someone for professional advice, it’s likely to be a parent or sibling (who are all pretty accomplished). In terms of admiration, it would be one of my first managers - Adam Gerdel. He ran the Operational Excellence team at my first job, and he became a big role model for how to develop teams that want to work together, how to deliver results while also making time to think outside of the box, and how to support employees both personally and professionally - all while staying ruthlessly focused on efficiency and innovation. He’s a one-in-a-million team leader, and I’m grateful for all that I learned from him.

Keith Cline is the Founder of VentureFizz.  Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.

Top photo courtesy of Maximillian Tortoriello Photography, other photos were provided by Bullhorn.