Engineers are a unique breed. Engineering teams are — as the name suggests — the engine room of any digitally driven business, and they often nurture a wholly different mindset, approach to problem solving, culture, humor and even fashion sensibility.
In recognition of this uniquely techy subset, we chatted with three local businesses that are looking specifically for engineers. We asked about the tools they use, the projects they’re working on and any special team traditions they might have — and the responses, as you might guess, got suitably geeky.
What they do: Boulder-based LogRhythm puts advanced security intelligence software in the hands of businesses, offering the ability to root out and boot cyber threats from sprawling systems. The technology forms a basis for thousands of security operations centers around the world, from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises.
Tech toolbox: LogRhythm engineers code using a broad and modern tech stack, with languages like Java, C++ and Golang among them.
Figuring out how to visualize (data) in a way that enables incident investigations and threat hunting has been really interesting.”
Team tradition: LogRhythm engineers kick off each month with cinnamon rolls, eat free lunches every Friday and take part in regular hackathons. The latter are designed to encourage the team to think outside the box and build something that interests them, often outside the company’s normal scope of operations.
Favorite project: “One of my most fun projects has probably been working on visualizations in the LogRhythm NextGen SIEM Platform’s web console,” Technical Product Manager Matt Willems said. “Because of the nature of a SIEM, we have access to a lot of data. Figuring out how to visualize it in a way that enables incident investigations and threat hunting has been really interesting.”
What they do: With advanced big data and machine learning technology, Quantum Metric helps businesses monitor how users interact with their digital experiences in real time. The technology then helps companies identify issues and implement improvements to streamline those digital experiences.
Tech toolbox: Quantum Metric’s tech stack features a range of technologies and languages, including JavaScript, SQL, React, Redux and Node.js.
On any given day we take in billions of requests directly from web and native clients all over the world.”
Team tradition: Quantum Metric’s Denver-based engineers always take time out from their hard-working, fast-moving workdays to eat lunch together as a team. While they often find themselves talking about work, the team credits this tradition as a reason each member knows one another so well on a personal level.
Favorite project: “We’re currently re-architecting the data ingestion piece of our architecture,” Software Engineer Peter Epsteen said. “On any given day we take in billions of requests directly from web and native clients all over the world. In order to continue scaling the business and growing our product's capabilities, we’re reworking this ingestion layer with true horizontal-scalability in mind. The most enjoyable part of this work is seeing just how much traffic we can throw at the new system without a hiccup. At Quantum we absolutely love to solve problems of scale, and seeing this increase in capacity is incredibly exciting for us.”
What they do: DHI Group — parent company for a range of industry-specific careers firms — uses data insights to connect talented folks with companies that want to hire them. The company has separate sites for folks with security clearances (dubbed “ClearanceJobs), tech skills (“Dice”) and advanced financial know-how (“eFinancialCareers”).
Tech toolbox: DHI Group is re-envisioning its platform and business with a new microservices architecture built leveraging Java, C# and Python in a focused AWS serverless infrastructure environment. On the front end, its user interfaces are predominantly written using Angular 7 with web compositing happening within the Hippo/Bloomreach Experience CMS platform. DHI Group’s teams are all full stack-oriented, with a “you build it, you run it” mentality. The company uses AWS as much as possible, along with Lambda, API Gateway, S3, Code Pipeline, Code Deploy, Cloud Formation, RDS, Dynamo, SQS, SNS, Elasticsearch, Kinesis, Redshift, Sagemaker, Comprehend and more.
We have a lot more to come as our engineering and product teams re-envision the entire candidate and employer experience...”
Team tradition: DHI Group’s engineering has a culture of celebrating big wins together, whether that’s as a team, or with the entire company when big releases go live.
Favorite project: “There are many!” SVP of Development Steve Peck said. “We’re re-envisioning the job search and talent acquisition experience, with tech careers at the center of what we do. Taking a legacy career site like Dice that has been in existence for almost 30 years and completely modernizing all aspects of it is a fun and dynamic challenge. Giving tech professionals the most relevant job search experience and providing them the right information at the time that’s the most relevant to them is one of the most exciting product efforts that’s out in beta right now. We have a lot more to come as our engineering and product teams re-envision the entire candidate and employer experience and underlying platform capabilities over the next several years.”
What they do: Finding relevant participants for market research and soliciting clean data from them is a big challenge for many businesses. Respondent — which has a completely remote workforce — connects marketers and researchers with its pool of study participants, and offers a single platform for scheduling and payment.
Tech toolbox: Respondent’s engineering teams use AngularJS and VueJS applications on the front end, and uses a complex graph supported by Neo4j that props up some of their back-end systems. The company’s infrastructure is running across AWS, MLab and Heroku. Engineers are currently testing how TypeScript, GraphQL and Terraform might create a better experience for both users and themselves, and has recently started relying more heavily on Lambdas, Kinesis and ElasticSearch.
I have loved brainstorming and executing on new ways to capture and analyze data.”
Team tradition: Respondent spurns the typical naming procedure for new systems, which usually produces generic names that reflect the initial implementation idea — which is typically out of date before the project even finishes. Instead, the team picks a name together that sums up the spirit of the system. For example, their fraud detection system was dubbed “the_Interrogator_”.
Favorite project: “To promote high quality participants to our clients, I've been working on an automated pipeline to score participants on a variety of data — user-entered information, engagement and behavior and so on,” Software Engineer Rayaan Katau said. “I have loved brainstorming and executing on new ways to capture and analyze data. Seeing and measuring its impact across features has been really exciting!”
