Appetizers

Starting with some basics.

 Fun Starters

Getting to know the human side.

 Main Course

A quick deep dive into the day-to-day job.

Tell us about yourself and your job.

Hey! I'm Max - currently 24 years old working out of Seattle, WA. I'm a software engineer at Bolt Financial, a startup geared towards democratizing e-commerce.

After spending a couple of years at Amazon building out automated financial accounting for centralized commerce, I found myself at Bolt - working towards creating a frictionless, one-click buying experience for shoppers around the world.

How did you end up in your field? What do you like about it?

I've always been fascinated by math, tech, and everything in between. My initial interest in engineering and programming was piqued through iPhone jailbreaking back in high school. I would spend my afternoons hovering over my iPhone 5 - obsessing over customized themes, open-source alternative apps, and pushing the phone's overall capabilities.

I would go on and major in Computer Science in college, where I found further fascinations in tech, finance, and business. The capabilities of programming are endless - an extremely useful skill that can be applied towards all fields; that flexibility and independence captivated me.

What does a typical morning look like on the job?

Working at a startup, each day is pretty unpredictable. We always have a stand-up every day, where my internal team meets to give each other updates on what we worked on the previous day, what we plan to do that day, and if there are any blockers on our deliverables.

Aside from that, my mornings can be filled with technical discussions, design meetings, interviews, or focus time for programming/development.

Cool, then what does a typical afternoon look like?

Afternoons can be pretty similar to mornings - either more meetings and interviews or focused time to work on projects, which could range from programming and design, to feature testing, depending on which part of the development cycle we're currently in.

What types of projects and meetings are you involved in?

My work is usually based on feature-based deliverables. Depending on what's in our roadmap for the quarter, product managers and engineering leaders will help prioritize the most important projects we need to ship for our clients and customers.

Meetings I'm involved in can include technical discussions, design reviews, bug bashes, and knowledge transfers.

Who do you collaborate with within meetings and projects?

There's a large amount of interdisciplinary collaboration throughout projects. Developers are in constant communication with product managers, engineering managers, QA engineers, and product designers to ensure full coverage of a project. Depending on the type of project we're working on, we can also have close involvement with other teams across the company, as well as engineers at other companies that we're partnering with.

I personally really enjoy being able to work with people from all types of backgrounds on a day-to-day, it gives a lot of exposure and insight towards what is needed to successfully launch a product.

 Dessert

Now for some juicy insights in the tea room.

What's the most challenging thing about your job?

There is a lot of ambiguity, combined with a high expectation for performance. Being in a fast-paced, hypergrowth environment, we need to always be on our toes and ready to adapt/react quickly to changes in product priorities and deliverables.

Although challenging, I find this to be really enjoyable as well - I believe this environment really helps to accelerate growth and opportunity for impact.

What are some characteristics that can help someone succeed in your role?

Always be willing to learn and hear out different perspectives, be curious and ask questions, and never give up - there are no impossible problems.

Any advice on how to stand out and get hired for those just starting off?

The earlier you're able to get a foot in the door, the easier your career progression will be, and a larger amount of opportunities will be made available to you. A couple of things I personally found success with when first starting off included hackathons, personal projects, and industry connections.

Once you're able to get a few interviews, the interview process is pretty standardized throughout software engineering. Make sure to focus on your algorithm and technical skills, and you'll slowly get the hang of it.

What's something that surprised you about your job?

The autonomy and how awesome it is to work with the people here. Aside from a few mandatory meetings each day, the rest of the day is up to me to plan out my responsibilities, collaborate with others across the company, and learn from the best of the best.

Bolt also has an incredible focus on work-life balance - being on a 4-day work week allows me to come into each day of work focused and ready to take on the new challenges ahead.

What do you see your next step being?

I want to further explore my interests in finance and business. I'd love to expand my scope and immerse myself throughout the fintech space, ultimately working towards something that promotes social good.

Whether I continue as an individual contributor, shift towards management, or pivot into a new field completely, I'm excited to see what the next 5 years have in store.

Any last thoughts, advice, or recommendations for someone who wants to do what you do?

Work hard, play harder :)

 Drinks

Chat more over coffee or tea?