Manager Interview
What are you responsible for at Signiant?
I am responsible for the Software Development organization in Signiant, which obviously includes software development, but also quality assurance and sustaining functions.
Why did you decide to join Signiant?
My last small company had been acquired by a very large company and I was looking for two different qualities for in next role. First, I wanted to work in a different industry as I had spent most of my career in the Telecom sector, and felt it was time to do something different. Second, but more importantly, I was looking for a smaller company where there was razor sharp focus on software delivery, customer satisfaction, and timely decision-making. I found all of this and more in Signiant!
Describe your team?
Our development team is quite unique in that there is no hierarchy to stifle creativity. Some of the best ideas and innovations come from the most junior members of the team, as all members are encouraged to try new things (tools, processes, improvements) and see if they work for us. This bottom-up approach secures much more ownership and commitment than if the ideas were pushed from the top.
What are some technologies your team works with?
We have a distinction between what we call “Core” (data plane) and “Full-Stack’ (Control plane) teams in that the Core teams program in Golang for the new projects, and support some older products written in C++ and C, while the Full-Stack teams work in Node, React, Material UI and sustain our older products written in Java and Javascript. We adopted Software-as-a-Service years ago, and leverage micro-services based architectures for all of the current projects. Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides continuous innovations, and we utilize as many of the services provided as possible in our control plane software. We are also storage agnostic, so we support all of Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services in addition to S3 compatible storage, local storage and network attached storage. And because of the precious data we transport, defensive programming and security is always are the forefront in everything we do.
Why is now and exciting time to join Signiant?
Providing software to some of the world’s largest media and entertainment companies means that we need to continually innovate to keep pace with changing customer demands. Although Signiant is currently known for fast file transfers, we do so much more. The future will see us leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) to not only improve our current portfolio, but to develop new innovations for our industry.
What are three things you would tell someone starting a job at Signiant?
- There is a lot to learn, but our modern, fully-agile, low-ego software development organization will make it an enjoyable experience.
- You are going to be working with some of the smartest (and nicest) software developers in the industry – everyone is personable and helpful.
- There are no limits to what you can accomplish here at Signiant. Dig in and have fun!
