Thursday, December 6, 2012 in More from ReadyTalk
Hey there! Let me introduce myself. I am Jason Collins (aka. "JC" around the office), and I am a member of the Engineering Team here at ReadyTalk. We've recently been recruited by the Marketing folks to contribute material to the ReadyTalk blog, so you'll be seeing us here from time to time. We've got a lot to contribute to the blog that we hope will help give people an understanding of the culture here at ReadyTalk, and more specifically in the engineering cave. Topics will range from how we've implemented and succeeded at SCRUM to how we've built our own Java Virtual Machine. But before we get on to blogging, let me tell you a little bit about who we are...
We are the practical jokers. We are funny and hilarious. We are incredibly intelligent. We are brewmasters. We are triathletes and marathoners. We are recent college graduates. We are fathers and we are mothers. We are aunts and uncles. We are married and we are single. We are Broncos fans and Rockies fans. We are musicians. We are artists. We are builders, and we create things. We are the guys who grew mutton chops and wore kilts to the company holiday party. We're active in DJUG. We have a nerd book club, where we have dialog about nerdy things like programming theory and the tenets of agile development practices. We have tattoos and wear horn-rimmed glasses. We have hip style. We do push-ups every hour. We race our own cars at Bandimere Speedway, and brag about our quarter mile times.
We are video game players. We are video game programmers. We've built MAME cabinets and Rube Goldberg machines. We are agile evangelists. We love fine wines, Martinis and a dram of expensive Scotch. We are world travelers. We are zero carbon footprint. We are authors and we've been published. We are continuous integration and we are constantly improving. We still read comic books. We ride bicycles. We run. A lot. We are bilingual. We are great cooks. We love dogs. We wear idea helmets around the office. We laugh and we cry. We debate, we argue, and we learn from one another. We are the team that cooked bacon into waffles and built the most creative mini-golf hole. We have a mannequin and we occasionally dress it up for laughs. We are Ironman. We listen to classical and speed metal and everything in between. We are fascinated by anything having to do with pirates or ninjas.
We are Open-Source Software and we are GitHub. We are honest and we are loyal. We love Salt & Vinegar chips. We own ShameDonuts.com and we look for excuses to update it. We watch out for one another, and we're always ready to lend a hand. We build houses for humanity and wrap gifts for underprivileged kids. We are iPad developers. We are Linux lovers and Apple fanboys. We are a PC and Windows 7 was NOT our idea. We strive to always do the right thing. We are contributors and we are problem solvers.
We are ReadyTalk Engineering. The difficult we do right away...the impossible will take a little longer.
Jason Collins (aka JC) is the VP of Engineering at ReadyTalk and the self-appointed Chief Happiness Officer. He's been either writing code or managing engineers for nearly 15 years and has a passion for technology and agile development practices. The happiness of the engineering team is his top priority and he can usually be found wearing a ReadyTalk cape and the infamous "idea helmet" around the office to help keep people entertained. When he's not hanging out with his work family, he's at home with his wife and four boys doing all sorts of geeky things, like playing video games and watching campy Sci-Fi and Action flicks.
