Four Winds Interactive combines hardware and software solutions that bring dynamic visual communications to life. Leveraging a variety of technologies, the Denver-based company delivers digital signage, a visual communications platform and an app marketplace that enable businesses to connect both employees and consumers to the information and experiences that matter most.
With customers ranging from airports and corporate campuses to hospitals and stadiums, FWI’s engineering team must embrace nearly limitless use cases and ensure that the front end of the product both feels simple and works in real time — even when being deployed across hundreds or even thousands of endpoints.
CTO Sebastian Gnagnarella gave us a glimpse into FWI’s tech stack and shed some light on the technical challenges that get his team excited to come to work every day.
Tell us a little bit about Four Winds Interactive’s tech stack and how you chose it.
FWI has been a .Net shop since its inception, and that is the technology we use to build all our core products. Of course, there are some variations depending on the use case: for example, we use Xamarin on top of .Net to build multi-platform applications.
A year ago, we embarked on a journey to build the next generation of our software called FWI Cloud. We decided to use technologies like ReactJs, NodeJs, Python and DynamoDB, which are more appropriate for a cloud platform.
What problems are you solving with technology? How are you solving them?
At a high level, our platform enables customers to deliver the right data at the right time to the right place. But when you extrapolate that into all the different use cases we support, things get interesting.
We build software that enables airports to display business-critical, real-time flight and gate statuses, allows global corporations to show employee engagement information around their disparate office locations, powers fan engagement initiatives in professional sports stadiums, and more. The other interesting challenge is to ensure our software is extremely user-friendly, making it easy for anyone to manage content centrally across hundreds — or thousands — of endpoints.
What’s your biggest technical challenge and how do you overcome it?
Working with thousands of “technology-diverse” distributed endpoints is definitely a fun technical challenge. We attacked this from multiple fronts: first, streamlining our player’s code base and, when possible, targeting multiple platforms at the same time; second, adopting System On a Chip devices (like Brightsign, Samsung SSP or LG); and third, building a cloud-native platform that can easily adapt and scale.
We are curious and perfectionists, but we understand that, as Steve Jobs said, ‘Real artists ship.’”
How would you describe the culture of FWI’s dev team?
We have a dedicated, hard-working team that always makes time to have fun and celebrate our successes. My leadership team maniacally focuses on enabling a good work-life balance. We have flexible schedules and unlimited time off, but at the same time, we honor our commitments. We are curious and perfectionists, but we understand that, as Steve Jobs said, “Real artists ship.”
Is there anything special about the processes your team uses or how they work together to complete projects?
I don’t believe in dogmatic development processes. You have to adopt the practices that work for your team and ditch the rest. Along those lines, we use Agile methodology. We do backlog grooming and tasking, but we only meet three times a week and we do retrospectives as needed.
What's your leadership style like?
I am relaxed and able to maintain my cool under pressure. I am a servant leader and like to be part of the team — staying hands-on and being a resource they can use to bounce ideas off of to solve complicated problems. My job is not only to strategize at 30,000 feet but also to dive into the weeds when needed. As a technology and product leader, I have to stay sharp and be able to understand what the team is doing and even experience their pain points. I enjoy contributing but also have complete trust in my team.
How do you encourage developers — at any level — to innovate or think creatively about the problems you solve?
I encourage research and give my team the autonomy to pick the right technology for the problem at hand. The team is encouraged to take controlled risks, which have led to great breakthroughs.
What do you look for in a great tech hire?
I look for team players who are curious, know their craft and, most importantly, are humble.
