Leveraging massive amounts of data for risk assessment. Using new tech stacks to build updated student forums. Finding creative ways to utilize iOS 14 widgets.
These are just a few examples of the innovative projects the following Austin engineering teams are currently working on.
What’s more, they’re all working as a team to get the job done.
“There is a true culture of embracing learning here, and that includes embracing helping and teaching your team members,” Jerome Johnson Jr., an engineering team lead, said.
So, if you’re looking to join a team that’s not only focused on delivering innovative products, but is also stacked with talented and collaborative engineers, look no further. SpyCloud, A Cloud Guru and PLANOLY are looking to expand their teams in a variety of focus areas including DevOps, quality assurance, software integrations and more.
What they do: SpyCloud helps businesses prevent account takeover and fraud stemming from stolen credentials. Its proprietary solutions proactively defeat fraud attempts and disrupt criminals’ ability to profit from stolen information.
Some insight into SpyCloud’s tech stack: “We have a wide tech stack ranging from Python to C to .Net,” Pham said. “We utilize a lot of different tools to achieve optimal results. We take advantage of many AWS services to process, enrich and deliver our massive data collection to our customers. Our favorite tool to use is Hashcat, as we deal with many different types of password hashes at extremely large volumes.”
An interesting project Pham is currently working on: “We always look for novel and innovative ways to help our customers protect their employees and users. One of the most interesting projects we are working on right now is leveraging our massive data for risk assessment. For example, when given a data point, like an email or a phone number, we will be able to tell you how much risk is involved when you have to deal with that datum. This helps our customers predict and prevent potential unsafe or fraudulent transactions. This is just a tip of the iceberg, of course. There are many other things we can do to help create a safer cyberspace.”
Something unique about the team: “We have a very unique, fun and engaging team culture here at SpyCloud. There are regular lunch-and-learns where someone teaches everyone about an interesting topic ranging from how to crack passwords to how to smoke meats and assemble mechanical keyboards. We all have a chance to learn something new every now and then.”
What they do: Guided by its mission to “teach the world to cloud,” A Cloud Guru offers hands-on courses for consumers and companies to teach people the skills they need to work with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and more.
Some insight into A Cloud Guru’s tech stack: “We believe in using the best tool for the task at hand, so we have a number of different technologies in our stack,” Johnson said. “We have some legacy microservices built using Angular, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and some AWS services such as ECS and EC2.
“Most of our newer applications are built using React and Node, in conjunction with the Serverless Framework utilizing cloud services such as AWS Lambda and API Gateway. Ruby on Rails is one of my personal favorite tools, but the Serverless Framework is making a run for my top spot!”
A challenging project Johnson is currently working on: “The most challenging project I’m currently on is working with the team to build an updated version of our student forums. It’s an interesting project because there’s a lot of moving parts and we’re also incorporating a lot of user feedback into the design process.
“The team is exploring some new tools and doing a bit of learning as we build, which is a challenge, but also extremely rewarding. Learning new and better ways to solve problems is core to the culture here, and rebuilding something from the ground up gives us a chance to learn from previous pitfalls.”
Something unique about the team: “One unique thing about my team is the exceptional level of teamwork. There is a true culture of embracing learning here, and that includes embracing helping and teaching your team members. The engineers organically get together to pair or swarm on issues pretty regularly, and the collaboration allows us to help upskill team members who may be new to a particular tool faster, which allows us to be more agile as a team overall.”
What they do: PLANOLY is a social media software designed for web and mobile use that allows users to visually plan, manage and schedule Instagram posts. Users are also able to see their page, post analytics, create a shoppable gallery and customize stories based on designer templates.
Some insight into PLANOLY’s tech stack: “On the iOS team we’re always using the latest Xcode and writing the newest code in Swift,” Clements said. “We’ve also played around with some SwiftUI and ways we can utilize that inside of our existing codebase.”
An interesting project Clements has worked on recently: “The most interesting challenge that we were working on recently was how we can utilize the new iOS 14 widgets, and what kind of information we'd want to present to users. It’s always nice to get to take a stab at the new features coming out from iOS and finding ways to integrate them where they really make a positive difference to our user experience.”
Something unique about the team: “Something unique about this engineering team is that we really try to work in parallel to all of the platforms that we support. We work with web and Android closely to make sure that users are able to seamlessly jump between platforms and are having the best experience no matter where they use our application.”
