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Daven Stanley

Life as a Working Parent

Development, Featured Posted: October 9, 2018

1. What do you do here at HCSS? How long have you been here, and how long have you been here as a mom?
I’m a User Experience Designer for HCSS Mobile, occasionally contributing to Safety and HeavyJob Web. I’ve been with HCSS for 12 years, and I’m a mom to a 5-year-old and 2-year old girls.

2. What does “Work-Life Balance” mean to you? Does it really exist or is it more of just a buzzword?
Before being a mom, I didn’t really think about work-life balance, i.e., work-life and home-life overlapped all the time. I like being productive, regardless if it’s personal or business, so I never made a clear separation between the two.

After becoming a mom, it was still natural to let the two worlds overlap. However, it has become increasingly more important for me to create a clear separation. I didn’t like being distracted from my conversations with my kids or not pay attention to a new soccer move my oldest learned.

“Work-life balance” to me now means when I’m with my family, they have my full attention, and work-related thoughts take a backseat. It also means scheduling personal time for myself to decompress mentally, which usually includes physical fitness. It took me while to learn, but for me to be present for my family as well as do my work well, it finally sunk in that I need to make time to take care of myself.

3. What diverse skills do you think that parents (both moms and dads!) can bring to the table in the work environment?
Empathy. Communication. Patience. To understand our kids’ perspective, we empathize with them just as we empathize with our customers to solve their business problems. We learn how to communicate with our kids at their level just as we find a sweet spot to communicate with our customers and colleagues. We especially learn how to strengthen our patience as our kids frequently test them, and we find value in using that patience towards handling high-stress or frustrating situations at the workplace.

4. Do you ever seek parenting advice from other parents here at HCSS? If so, what was something helpful you learned?
All the time! I love hearing and sharing parenting stories because I learn so much from the other parents as well as feel solace that I’m not the only one going through the same issues. The most helpful advice I’ve received is the value of sleep. I used to constantly run on empty and power through any task to remain productive. Once I became a mom, I find myself always ensuring my kids get as much rest as possible. They retain more knowledge and absorb more information; they’re less temperamental, more patient, and happier. Yet I continued to deprive myself of it. It hit me that I should be pushing myself to get as much rest as possible for the same reasons I push my kids to get it.

5. What do you consider your biggest success(es) as a working parent?
Being able to show my kids that it’s possible to find a career they love as well as be a parent. It’s definitely a lot of work balancing the two, but I make an effort to show them every day how rewarding it can be.

6. How do you measure success as a working parent?
I feel it’s successful if I can add value through my work at the office (e.g., resolving a business problem, implementing new ideas, collaborating well on a project, etc.), be able to provide a nice meal for my kids, run through their evening routine with fun and laughter, and making the time to be present for all my kids’ activities.

7. Any advice you have for the new or future parents here at HCSS?
When you’re with your kids, stay off your phone. There will be time to catch up on e-mails, news, games, etc. later. It’s a tough habit to break, and admittedly, I am continually being more conscious of this. It helps to have someone keep me accountable for it.

The speed the kids grow up is incredible, and every moment deserves your full attention.

 

Credit: Photography by Josh Espinoza

An Aggie’s Intern Journey

Development, Featured, Interns Posted: October 2, 2018

Growing up I have always loved to program. My first experience with programming was teaching myself how to program in Python because my high school didn’t offer any programming courses. After graduating high school I knew I wanted a career in programming, so I went to Texas A&M to study computer science. Throughout my college career I have done 5 internships in a variety of industries. However, HCSS is unique and throughout my internship journey it now feels like home.

I first heard about HCSS online because it was named one of the best places to work through Glassdoor. When I interviewed I really felt like the culture could be another family. As I started my internship at HCSS I was given the opportunity to learn about C# and the other technologies that HCSS uses to build their products. My first few weeks here I was tasked with eliminating bugs, so that the rest of my internship could focus on a new initiative for HCSS Safety (one of our products).

The initiative that I worked on was integrating React ( a frontend web development framework) into HCSS Safety. The first two weeks of the project I worked on configuring the project so that we could deploy it with the new framework included and not break other pages. The remainder of my internship was focused on refactoring two pages into React, so that other developers could follow those example pages.

One thing that is unique about HCSS and its culture is being open to new ideas and suggestions. As an intern working with other full time employees on the team, this quality helped me feel comfortable doing the research and making suggestions about the decisions we should make about the project.

Another new experience for me during my internship was working with multiple teams. Aside from my coworkers in Safety, I worked closely with Ramon, a UX developer intern who was building a library of React components anyone at HCSS could use. During this new React initiative I also got to help guide an offshore team based in Costa Rica in building one of the new pages. The trust my team gave me, allowed my team to work on existing features while still moving towards React on the pages I was helping with.

These initiatives and projects helped me build a strong foundation for working with real world projects and teams before I graduate. This is something that not all of my fellow classmates get to do in one summer. I am super excited to join HCSS full time in December after I graduate!

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Janmy - HCSS

I love that HCSS encourages continuous learning, which helps me not only be a better UXer but also a 'jill-of-all-trades.' Additionally, if I see a need to improve our processes or products, I'm encouraged to explore solutions to proactively achieve that."

Janmy S.
UX Designer

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