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The NEW www.theknot.com is LIVE!
XO Tech is proud to announce the NEW www.theknot.com! This is more than a redesign -- it’s a complete re-platform! Huge congrats to everyone at XO Group for this incredible effort. More to come about how we transformed not only our tech stacks but also our whole development process! Cheers all!
Meet Tian He
Introducing Tian He, our passionate, driven, and inspiring engineering lead. We sat down with Tian to find out what life at XO is like as for this incredibly busy team player.
XO: What exactly do you do here at XO?
TH: I'm the Engineering Lead for The Bump and The Nest. I’m responsible for making sure that the engineering team is continually delivering high quality products that are to spec and on time.
XO: What would you say your typical day is like?
TH: There isn't a typical day. Every day is really different because my priorities depend on the needs of my team. We'll usually start with a 10-min standup in the morning where everyone talks about his/her progress. Then, it’s off to the races.
I'll jump into a meeting with the product team to plan and strategize our product roadmap. Then work with the Baby-Tech engineers to prioritize stories for our current sprint, help them remove any roadblocks stopping their progress, and occasionally brainstorm a work-around to a pesky engineering problem. I might sit-in on some code reviews. And at the organization level, I'll probably chat with our awesome recruiters Bec + Drew about what we can do to attract more engineering talent or meet with other engineering managers to talk about what actions we can take to improve our engineering process.
The only thing that is constant is that I start the day with fruit + oatmeal at the XO Cafeteria.
XO: What is the best part of your job?
TH: The best part of my job is definitely working with everyone at XO! We have such a friendly and supportive environment. And everyone here is better than me at something and I get to learn from all of them.
XO: Where were you before XO?
TH: My previous experiences were pretty diverse. My first job coming out of college was in finance so I was in investment banking. I did that for two years. After that I did investing for one year in late stage startups. Then I started my own company Gojee in a technical and product role. I did that for three years before XO acquired us in March.
XO: Would you say your previous experience has helped you transition to XO Group?
TH: Definitely. Each of those three experiences offered something different. I’ve found my experiences have built on top of each another. Working in investment banking gave me was this OCD level of attention to detail. One of the first things that I did when I joined The Bump was get everyone to focus on details. The first release of the Bump app after I joined didn’t involve increment features, it involved making small tweaks on alignment and font-size to make sure that when users opened our app, then know we spent time worrying about the smallest bit of details.
My second job was investing so that really taught me to think about every decision in terms of risk and reward. At the Bump, we’re easily working on 3-4 initiatives at a time and it’s important to prioritize. Sometimes the easy and quick things aren’t the things I should be doing. And sometimes, the urgent thing isn’t really that urgent at all.
My last experience before XO also taught me the most. It wasn’t until Gojee that I realized that some things don’t happen unless you make them happen through persistence and coordination. The biggest trick I learned is to ask the right questions and help people realize what needs to be done next.
XO: What was it like starting and transitioning from Gojee?
TH: Honestly, it has been pretty easy. I’ve had to get used to having more resources and a nicer office. That’s kind of tongue-in-check. Having dedicated teams has allowed me to focus on the thing I love most, which is technology. At the same time, I do miss getting a chance to touch so many parts of the business all at once. I still get to in a lot of ways, just not as much as before.
The best part of the transition by far is that XO has an amazing culture. I did 5-6 internships and 3-4 full-time jobs out of college. XO is the top place in terms of culture.
XO: What do you look for in a prospective candidate?
TH: It depends on the role. For junior positions I look for candidates with a lot of drive, a positive attitude, and general problem-solving skills. For more senior positions domain knowledge, good judgment, and the ability to work well with others becomes more and more important. Much of engineering requires team work and pragmatism so I think the best engineers have a good balance of internal drive, practical judgment, and collaboration/communication skills.
XO: What advice would you give someone who is interested in applying for a position at XO?
TH: Do it already! XO's a great place to work. I’ve found a genuine, collaborative community and some of the nicest people to work with and learn from. I’ve also encountered some challenging engineering problems because we have to worry about scale and performance from day one so adhering to best practices is crucial. And what makes XO special to me is the culture. It makes me excited to come to work every day.
XO: How would you describe XO in one word?
TH: Fun!
CEO Robot
When our CEO David Liu can't be in the office, we still get to see him zipping around the office on his sweet robot ride, ala Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.
Loving Life & Coding at XO
It's Thirsty Thursday here at XO Group, and the XO Tech team is no stranger to mixing it up in the game room. We often take breaks and blow off some steam with some heated and often epic ping pong and foosball matches. The vintage arcade games are a new and welcomed treasure.
If that isn't enough, 4:30PM is our Thirsty Thursday happy hour, we have two pretty awesome beers on tap at the bar this month - Dogfish Pumpkin Ale and Harpoon Oktoberfest.
Cheers!
XO Tech hosts NYC API Group Meetup
XO Tech hosted NYCAPIGroup's meetup in their NYC office at 195 Broadway. Jason M. Sherman lead a discussion about API Management Providers to a group NYC based developers and entrepreneurs. It was an evening of many thoughtful questions over beer and a few matches of ping-pong.
