We’re thrilled to welcome our newest full-stack programmer, Ryan O’Connor, to our growing development team! The interview process was a breeze, uncovering Ryan’s thoughtful, funny, and creative personality that we’re so excited to have around the office. The team knew from the get-go that Ryan was a fit when he revealed his desire to “fix things and help people”, a quality we admire here at Oomple. Here are some snippets from our conversation…
So, development’s your thing eh? What brought you to programming?
What brought me to programming in the first place was the unique challenges that it offered over other disciplines. I was introduced to programming back in 11th grade where I started learning Visual Basic. Throughout the course, I was presented with a number of different problems to solve, each more difficult than the other. The pure satisfaction of having solved a problem after working days on it, to this day, is the reason why I love coding.
That’s great that you love coding! Tell me what else you are passionate about outside of work?
Outside of work, I like to spend my time doing a number of different things. I enjoy running, playing the occasional round of golf and spending my weekends on the water. When time permits, I also enjoy playing a few video games or working on side projects. During the summer of 2017, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel in Europe for 2 months. While traveling I discovered that I had passions for cooking, beer, as well as photography.
Last but definitely not least, I have a crazy obsession for motor racing, specifically F1. I listen to 3 Formula 1 podcasts, I read daily articles and watch daily videos. I do my best to watch every race live, even if that means staying up until 6AM on a Sunday.
That’s awesome! I can tell the team is going to enjoy getting to know you as we share similar interests! Anything unique about yourself?
- I have a borderline unhealthy passion for motor racing.
- I built a boat.
- Backpacked across Europe for 2 months.
- I longboard into work every day.
I know you have a cat, but if you could have any animal as a pet, what would it be?
A bigger cat! A Cheetah. Just because how fast they can run.
Now that you are one week in at Oomple, what are you working on?
We are currently getting ready to add drag and drop functionality to the Oomple platform. Before we do so, we need to integrate Webpack into our application. Webpack is a JavaScript packaging tool, which will allow us to leverage external JavaScript libraries that we would otherwise not have access to. In this case drag and drop.
Additionally, Webpack should give the Oomple platform some small performance improvements. This is achieved by reducing the overall page weight. The less data we need to transfer, the faster the webpage is loaded.
In terms of what is to come for the future, we will be focusing on adding new functionality to the questionnaire and general website performance improvements.
Last question. Complete this sentence, “By the end of 2018, I want to _______?”
While not something that I can quantify, “By the end of 2018 I would like to have improved my photography skills.”