Inside Edition interviews QA Engineer, De Nguyen! De graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry.
1. Describe a typical day for you at ReadyTalk
I'm not a morning person at all so I'll usually waltz in at about 8:30-8:45 a.m. I have two daily meetings on my calendar. The first is at 9:00 a.m. when my project team has our daily standup. This is where we see what's coming down the pipe and provide status on the things I'm working on. The standup is never over until someone pokes our Agile Coach, Z. Dub (Zach W.), in the gut and makes him "Hehe" like the Pillsbury Doughboy. We'll then go to work on what we've committed to delivering in the standup. At 11:30 a.m., the Lunch Train starts to form and we'll somehow come to a consensus as to where to go for some grub. There are just so many options in downtown Denver. At 3:00 p.m. is the second of my two daily meetings. This one is for the Daily Physical Challenge, where we try to see who's the king of the hill for that day's featured task. This can vary from a simple single elimination arm wrestling tournament, to pull ups, to reverse bear crawls up the seven flights of stairs, to 1 liter beer stein sustained poses. At 4:00 p.m., someone is bound to fire up Rock Band 3 on the big screen. I can usually fight the temptation to join until someone queues up some AC/DC. Then it's GAME ON! I sync back up with my project team members later in the afternoon to work on lingering issues. I'm usually headed for home sometime around 6:00 p.m.
2. Why do you think that ReadyTalk is the #1 company to work for in Colorado?
I could rattle off a dozen reasons why I feel that we're the #1 company to work for (not just in Colorado), but the most important would be the people. I'm surrounded by people that wouldn't hesitate to help me with anything. Two are even helping me move later this month! The managers respect that we are engineers, and that as engineers, we know what we're doing. They make sure to keep the path cleared for us, to let us do our thing. It's a very rewarding feeling. I should also mention that my name is in the hat for a couple of nights in the ReadyTalk ski condo in Winter Park.
3. Tell us about your favorite day at work…
Scotchtoberfest. Several of us pooled together to hold a scotch tasting in the Nerd Lounge. I was able to enjoy several premium scotches with lots of great people.
4. If someone were interested in working on your team @ ReadyTalk what advice would you have for them?
We've taken engineering to the Nth degree here, but we still don't know everything about everything, yet. If someone came in that could help us chip away at that block of missing knowledge, there would be great rewards to be had. It'd be pretty freakin sweet to have someone come in that totally blows your mind away. Luckily, we're all easily amused.