Shopzilla Technology Blog

Special thanks to fellow Product Manager’s – Dan Armstrong & Paul “Peaches” Pechey – for your input and suggestions.

• I am a believer…in our mission, our product, and most of all, our teams.
• I am confident my counterparts are the finest in their field and I rely on their guidance for the right solutions.
• I remove the noise to make the vision clear.
• I am a strong communicator and an even stronger listener.
• I am able to identify what is important and know how to prioritize.
• I do sweat the small stuff (and of course the big stuff too!).
• I am always thinking of my target audience and how we can make them happy.
• I take personal responsibility to orchestrate the moving parts to ensure the team’s success.
• I am passionate about progress.
• I thrive on and take pride in excellence.
• I am guided by the numbers and understand the trade-offs
• I am inspired by those around me and strive to give as much as I receive.
• I am a problem solver and I’m fueled by intense deadlines where critical thinking matters most.
• I am an advocate for the user and the merchant while understanding the needs of our business.  It’s striking that balance that makes this job fun.
• I am energized by seeing a team hit their stride and make magic happen.
• I am a dreamer, researcher, analyst, and end-user rolled into one.
• I know the issues, the costs, and most importantly, the possibilities.
• I am an evangelist for the vision and want to make a believer out of all of you.
• I am tireless about quality and take personal responsibility for defining what we want the product to be.
• I am competitive and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
• I love seeing the abstract transform into a concrete deliverable.
• I own it.
• I am a Product Manager…and this was my idea.

For the next in the “I am” series, here is what it means to me to be a CM Engineer.

I am a Configuration Management Engineer:

- I am the first and last leg of every race.
- I am watching every part of our system, right now.
- I am fast at finding solutions.
- I am never technically lost.
- I am shockingly adept at any technology, new or old.
- I am on the sharpest edge of technology, yet never get cut.
- I know when to shout, and when to whisper.
- I can make something that works work anywhere, better and faster.
- I am willing to help.
- I am responsible.
- I am online.
- I am no hero.
- I share every problem. Yours are now ours.
- I am capable of handling multiple top priorities.
- I am sure that pressure and chaos are afraid of me.
- I am Turbo.
- I am already done with this.

I am a CM Engineer because my work is to make it work.

A few of us QA Engineers have collaborated on this “I am” exercise to define what our role is here at Shopzilla.  Here’s our take on who we are:

I am a QA Engineer:

• I am passionate about QA.
• I think outside the box.
• I take pride in my product.
• I am an any means communicator.
• I am a problem solver.
• I am a detective.
• I automate.
• I take the initiative to investigate the what and the why.
• I look at issues from all angles.
• I drive releases in accordance to current process.
• I seek answers and details, I seek knowledge, I find clarity.
• I am proactive in mitigating risks.
• I am responsible for knowing what should be and confirming what is.
• I am quick and Agile.
• I am focused and driven.
• I am a Zillan.
• I am a contributor.
• I am compliant.
• I create relationships.
• I maintain a hyperdimensional perspective on the system.
• I am detail oriented.
• I create self-empowering documentation.
• I am independent, motivating and self-motivated.
• I know who my customer is.
• I am a spotlight, I direct and improve visibility all the time.
• I am a laser, I focus on precision and accuracy.
• I get involved early & often.
• I actively listen and share information.
• I am _not_ a tester.
• I present my customers with enough accurate information to make business decisions.
• I am a developer’s best friend.
• I am not afraid to sound the alarm.
• I am the voice of reason.
• I am a liaison.
• I am a universal translator.
• I am solid.

I am a QA Engineer and I’m here to make things better.

• I hold “excellence” as my yardstick.
• I am a software craftsman, I am proud of our code, and I promote this craftsmanship and pride amongst other engineers.
• I lead by example, and I love getting my hands dirty.
• I love to learn and teach through conversations about code.
• I favor reuse over reinventing the wheel.
• I am passionate about performance and know there is no such thing as “perf spray“.
• I engage other engineers, and in seeking them out I foster communication.
• I heart QA.
• I ensure my decisions are based on not just my own competence, but that of the whole team.
• I am a mentor, and I understand the difference between posing questions and mandating solutions.
• I am approachable.
• I encourage my teams to develop their own technical voice.
• I ensure my engineering team is not an island – our discoveries are shared; our struggles are too.
• I help strike the balance between quality and getting functionality out the door.
• I help business owners translate ideas into technical solutions.
• I find the bumps in the road before we hit them.

I am a lead engineer and my success is the sum of the success of the people around me.

I was recently asked by Phil to post a list of “I am…’s” for the role of Senior Software Engineer at Shopzilla. In that context, here is how I see my role.

I am a Senior Software Engineer

• I write software that creates business value.
• I have the experience and technical know-how to engineer high quality solutions.
• I collaborate with my team to translate business requirements into a robust and scalable technology.
• I follow sound engineering practices and standards.
• I am self-motivated; with a sense of urgency and a strong desire to solve complex problems.
• I am proud to support and maintain the products that power my business.
• I value team over heroics, collaboration over technical silos and pragmatism over technology dogma.
• I am a quick learner and continuously improve my skills.
• I actively contribute to the design and architecture of new solutions.
• I make my fellow engineers better; leading by example, mentoring when possible and sharing my knowledge.
• I refactor, reuse, refine, unit test, and create automated build/tests whenever possible.
• I am a fully vested member of my team. Our success, our process and our failures are mine.
• I embrace change and relentlessly pursue improvements to our process and technology

I am a Sr. Software Engineer and own my products because “the business” is my business too.