Aries Systems Corporation

Tell us a little about yourself – how long have you been working for Aries? What did you do before joining Aries?

I have been at Aries for eight years now. Prior to working at Aries, I started my tech career at an insurance company where I provided technical support as a Help Desk Representative and quickly moved up to a Programmer/Analyst position.

What have your roles at Aries been?

I started off at Aries fixing bugs and implementing new features. After a couple of years, I had moved into more of a release engineer role. I would review all the bugs that went out each release and fix any issues that were discovered during testing. After a few years in that role, I took on a new role in Research & Development where my focus was finding new coding solutions for unique problems surrounding our application.

How have your previous roles helped you in your current position?

In my current position, I spend a lot of time developing features, performing code reviews, and assisting other developers. My time spent as a release engineer helped me by exposing me to many different parts of our system which is vital for resolving issues fast and understanding the application wide impact of code changes that have been made.

How do you stay up-to-date with trends in your field?

Technology moves fast and it is important to stay up to date with what is coming. I regularly visit tech blogs, watch webinars, and take classes on technology topics that interest me. After I get some exposure, I then try to apply those skills to a project of my own to see how it works in a real world application.

How do you collaborate with other departments within Aries?

I collaborate daily with Product Management to ensure that the highest priority development is being worked on by my team. Likewise, I work with QA regularly to verify that any development that has been completed is working as expected.

Tell me about your department and the people you work most closely with.

The engineering department is made up of six teams all working on the development of new features and bug fixes for Aries software products. I work closely with a motivated team of skilled developers who are very easy to work with and always happy to help.  

Describe your typical workday.

My typical workday starts with a meeting with my team to help with any issues that they’re having and a review of what the priorities are for the day. After the meeting, I move on to addressing any analysis or code reviews that other people may be waiting on from me to ensure that the process keeps moving forward. In between these tasks, I work on any development of my own that is outstanding.

What do you most enjoy about your job? What do you enjoy most about working for Aries?

The thing I like most about being a Software Engineer is the satisfaction I get from being able to solve difficult problems. These problems can come in the form of a bug that was reported or a need for a new application or features based on a customer’s requirements. Working at Aries has been great because I’ve been able to experience so many different development roles which will help me steer my career in the direction that I want to head in the future.

What are you currently reading, listening to, or watching?

The Mandalorian has been my go-to show for the last several weeks. Other than that, I’m looking forward to the second season of Snowpiercer coming up soon and will catch the Game of Thrones spinoffs whenever they happen.

Tell me about some of your hobbies/interests outside of work.

Being home more this year meant I got the opportunity to explore some new hobbies. Recently, I started doing some small woodworking projects which was great because I needed a side table in my home office. It was nice to be able to create something that fit perfectly in the area I needed and it’s very rewarding to put something I made to good use every day. I’m hoping to take advantage of the winter weather here and get some skiing in as well.