Meet Dylan Lundquist!
- Frank Zappa
How did you become a developer?
It runs in my blood. But more seriously, my family growing up was always fairly computer literate. My dad was the one who coded the school's webpage where he taught back in the early days of HTML. Having two older brothers also interested in computing definitely helps in absorbing skills over time through osmosis and exposure.
Outside of early life, I was always one of the techie types and usually the one that was called on when any sort of computer adjacent question was asked. Even back then I would try to get a picture of the problem being presented and make a suggestion based on what I thought best fit their needs. Turning this into a career felt like a logical step.
How did you get to Bitovi?
I had just relocated for work and a change of pace, little did I know at the time that global scale changes were going to shake my world up more than I could have thought. After getting settled post-move, the pandemic hit and I was laid off as the company I worked for went through a major restructuring.
Serendipitously, a short time later, my brother, a long time Bitovian himself, sent me a message that the DevOps team was looking to expand. One thing led to another, and here I am!
What do you like most about Bitovi?
The people, work culture, and environment, which I suppose could all be sides of the same coin. Having worked at several other businesses at different scales, arriving at Bitovi was like a breath of fresh air. Gone were the attitudes, the quibbles, and the cliques. In their place I found support at all levels, resounding positivity, and extremely skilled people ready and willing to bring you up to their level.
What’s a typical day like at Bitovi?
My typical day at Bitovi is primarily task driven. Whether its working on a new feature for a client, or working on an internal project like Bitops to add a feature that I thought would be a nice to have. I know what I want to get done in a given week ahead of time, and I break up my days so that I can effectively meet those goals. This ensures I'm always moving forwards and even if one task gets paused, I'm able to refocus my efforts on another area during that time.
Do you listen to music when you code?
Do you have any tricks for staying focused?
Drink water or tea. When I find myself at my most frazzled I also usually notice that I'm parched and my water glass has been dry for an hour.
Taking a step back to make a pot of tea give me some time to think which can be useful when untangling a particularly complex problem, as well as giving myself something my mind needs to function its best.
How do you stay organized?
I changed this to keeping a general work log. It's only semi-structured and focus on my day-to-day activities, but it has proven invaluable for remembering what my goals for each day are or what was discussed at a previous meeting. Alternatively, if I thought of an interesting feature to add but hadn't gotten the bandwidth to implement it, I can quickly skim back through my notes of the previous week and pick it up. If I ran into a specific bug, I can find the note and refresh my memory on what the cause and solution were.
Compartmentalized notes, or meeting minutes, or tracking e-mail chains didn't work for me, but I've found something that does in my almost stream of consciousness style logging.
How do you relax?
You'll often find me most weekends talking with locals and trying to set the high score on whatever the new table to arrive at the pinball centric bar I frequent. "Ever since I was young boy, I played the silver ball..."
What is your greatest success in life?
My mom is a ridiculously good chef who puts me to shame in every arena. Doesn't matter if it's: pickles, preserves, baking, sausage, pasta, sauces, dumplings, or anything else you can name- she can make it by hand, and it blows all competition out of the water.
The times I've been able to cook for her and introduce her to a new recipe where she says she'll be adding it to her repertoire is a big win in my books. The most recent example was when I last visited, I made my parents mujaddara with a side of toum, both of which received rave reviews. Huge success!
Finally, what is your advice to other devs?
Find a position where you can work on your skills. Keep moving forwards!
Bitovi is a group of really talented software engineers and product designers. We are a fully distributed (remote) team. We only hire the best, and we're always looking for top-notch people to grow our team. If you think you have what it takes, view our openings.
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