Welcome to our Meet the 50 Team feature. This is where we get the lowdown on how the people at 50onRed get stuff done. This time we’re sitting down with Product Engineer, Tim Miller.
You were a part of our RedLabs internship program. How did you find out about RedLabs?
I found out about RedLabs through a friend of mine who was in the first internship class. He recommended it to me as a kind of choose-your-own-adventure kind of internship: He said that he had a lot of opportunity to work on whichever projects he pleased.
Because I was looking for something in Philadelphia, preferably at a web company, and had a couple of specific skill sets which I wanted to develop, that sounded perfect to me.
He recommended me to the recruiter, and after one or two phone screeners I was invited to the office for an on-site interview.
What were your fellow RedLabs cohorts like?
I had four fellow interns, ranging from a very talented high schooler to another student who will be graduating in one semester. They each had different levels of software engineering expertise, and came from both local universities and schools across the country. Everyone had different interests. One was back-end oriented, one was particularly interested in machine learning, and another was interested in user interfaces. It was nice to work with such a diverse group of people.
Which of your RedLabs projects are you most proud of?
I had two goals coming in: I wanted to do a lot of work using JavaScript, and I wanted to work with some data visualization libraries. I definitely got to do the first while working on the company’s products, and I had the opportunity to do some data visualization to help visualize some of the company’s machine learning experiments. Specifically, I used D3 and combined two discrete graph types to make a fully interactive model.
Another intern and I spent a good amount of time building some chat bots which lived in the companies chat channels. One of these helped take orders for Seamless Thursday, a nice perk that the company offers which lets everybody order a meal from a local restaurant.
You’re joining us as a full-time employee! What convinced you to come aboard?
I’ll admit that I originally took the internship planning on looking for a job in New York or San Francisco afterwards, but the company and culture of 50onRed won me over. Not only was my work both challenging and related to my interests, but the other developers were extremely knowledgeable and helpful. There’s a culture of doing things the right way… not to mention, a very well-stocked beer fridge. By the end if my internship they were planning on investing in a pool table.
I was also excited that 50 let me take some time off before starting full-time. I’m actually answering these interview questions from Belize, and will be traveling for another month before coming back to Philly. By the end of my trip, I’ll have backpacked all the way up from Guatemala to LA.
Any advice for coding college kids looking for their big break?
Code with people better than you. Track down the best students or teachers at your school, or companies in your town, and build things with them top-to-bottom. That’s the best way to become good fast.
Looking to meet the 50onRed team to talk about our culture, job opportunities, or internships? We’re a proud sponsor of the PennApps hackathon at the University of Pennsylvania, and once again hosting any hackers that want to hang out in our REDlounge. Go to the REDlounge page now to reserve a spot while openings are still available!
If you can’t make it to PennApps, we still have opportunities for you! Contact redlabs@50onRed.com to reach out to us with any internship questions you may have.