Ever wonder what it’s like to work at Tandem? In this series, we’re taking a peek into the everyday life of Tandem’s team members.
Morning
I typically wake up at 6 a.m. I like to work out in the morning, so I hydrate first thing with a tall glass of water and try to loosen up enough to avoid injuring myself. This morning I went for a run while it was still cool outside. In the wintertime, it’s so much harder to get motivated when it’s freezing!
I almost always listen to podcasts while I work out. Today I listened to Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about the relationship between general relativity and quantum mechanics. Admittedly, I only grasped a fraction of what he was saying, but knowing that top experts are working on the problem somehow makes me feel better. After my run, I watched last night’s highlights on ESPN while eating scrambled eggs for breakfast.
8 a.m.
I log in for work at 8 a.m. While most people probably read their messages and emails first, I often dive straight into coding after sleeping on a problem. This morning during my run, I was thinking of a better way to test some code I wrote yesterday (maybe that’s why I can’t understand quantum mechanics). So, before checking my email, I implemented a new unit test to shore up things from yesterday.
After pushing up that code, I oriented myself with my next work item by reviewing some front-end designs and going over the acceptance criteria for the user story. I also took a few minutes to answer the daily Tandem #watercooler Slack channel question. I don’t always answer the questions, but I enjoy reading people’s responses. Today’s question was about hanging versus folding clothes — something that would never normally come up, but it sparked some friendly debate among the different factions of clothes organization.
10 a.m.
At 10 a.m., my team has our daily stand-up meeting. It typically lasts 15 to 20 minutes and allows the team to get on the same page and overcome blockers. Our Team Leader always starts the meeting by opening it up to anything that people may want to discuss or work on as a group. It’s a good opportunity to quickly ask for guidance on a specific issue. There are different skill sets and levels of experience on the team, so it’s nice to be able to throw out issues or ideas and get some fast, high-quality feedback.
We also use the stand-up meeting to give a brief update on the status of the user stories we’re working on. I personally find this an effective way to gain insight into what other people on the team are working on. I certainly can’t work on everything, but knowing generally what’s being worked on helps me understand who knows what when technical obstacles come up.
Noon
Noon on Thursdays is reserved for “Tandem Thursday.” It’s a weekly company-wide meeting where someone volunteers to share something significant to them. Sometimes we discuss our projects, talk about interesting ideas, or hear company updates. Today, a coworker volunteered to share some experiences and pictures from her recent travels overseas. The trip looked fantastic and made me want to start planning a trip of my own.
Today for lunch, I threw some frozen chicken strips in the air fryer to make a BBQ chicken wrap. I tossed in some spinach, cheese, and diced peppers, then drizzled a combination of ranch and barbecue sauce on top. I try to avoid eating lunch at my desk. I like to step away and enjoy my meal outside if I can. Luckily, today wasn’t too hot, so I ate out on my back patio while I finished the podcast from my morning run. In case you were wondering, I still don’t understand quantum physics.
1 p.m.
At 1 p.m., I join a video call to do some pair programming with another developer on my team. It’s always fun to bounce ideas off each other, help troubleshoot issues, and make plans for upcoming work. After about an hour of pairing together, I had a list of tasks to complete my user story. So, I put on some chill music, got into the zone, and coded away.
3 p.m.
By 3 p.m., I was just about done with the code additions. I made sure that I had added enough unit tests for complete coverage and manually tested the feature one last time before submitting a pull request. While waiting for my team to review my code, I figured I could return the favor. So, I began reviewing a couple of code submissions myself.
Fortunately, the pull requests I was reviewing were well-written and included detailed testing instructions. By the time I finished adding comments, I had received some feedback on my code. Consequently, I submitted a few updates and managed to get my branch merged with time to spare.
5 p.m.
I wrapped up my work right around 5 p.m. today. I had started working on a new feature and wanted to get to a logical stopping point. Nothing is worse than stopping abruptly in the middle of coding. Additionally, I can’t sleep well if I’m right in the middle of a technical puzzle, so knowing where to stop is somewhat of an art form.
After Work
After work, I cooked dinner, so it was ready shortly after my wife got home from her office. After dinner, we went and played some tennis. I’m terrible, but it’s nice to spend time outside while the nights are long. I can’t finish the day without a bowl of Tillamook ice cream and an episode of Silo. I highly recommend both: the show and the ice cream.
Today was a fairly typical day. Some days have more meetings, such as Sprint Demos, Retrospectives, and Planning meetings. However, in the middle of the sprint, I’m fortunate to have enough space available to focus on the work of building software.
