A Day in the Life of Alice Huang, Dolly Software Developer

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In our Day in the Life series, we introduce you to a member of the Dolly team and give you a peek into what it’s like to work for Dolly.

Name: Alice Huang

Title: Software Developer

How long have you been working at Dolly? 6 months

What do you do here at Dolly? One of the platform engineers who builds and maintains features for the unseen side of Dolly. I also am the system owner of our web app, book.dolly.com.

Any fun facts about yourself that you’d like to share? For my first interview at Dolly, I went to the wrong address – and I still got the job!

What’s your favorite thing about working at Dolly? The geeky culture, the exciting amount of growth, and the inclusiveness and diversity of our team.

Alice’s Day in the Life

6:30AM

I start my day by waking up to NPR’s Up First podcast. Then I continue the start of a day with a variety of podcasts (NPR, Freakeconomics, Geekwire, etc.). I grab breakfast, then head out on my morning walk with Sophie, my beagle.

 

8:00AM

When I arrive at office, I get coffee in my Seattle Starbucks mug. Then I get started by diving into code. I’m mostly wrapping up the current sprint (“sprints” are the projects we’re working on that week), testing some new features, and fixing bugs found in testing.

Next, I respond to Ops requests that have been piling up since 5am and solve real time problems as needed.

 

9:00AM

Code, code, code! At 9:45, we have our daily 15-minute standup meeting. We talk about our plan for today and what we need to do as the product team.

 

10:00AM

Next is our weekly product sprint planning meeting for an hour and a half. We talk about what projects we’d like to tackle over the next week.

 

12:00PM

Lunch – I usually bring my own lunch because I like to cook, but often secretly wish I have what the next person has, like sushi or bagels!

I attack the puzzle for a little bit with our Office Manager, Casey. This one is 3,000 pieces!

 

1:00PM

More coding. And more testing & fulfilling Ops requests.

 

3:00PM

Coffee walk – A group activity. We walk to one of the nearby coffee shops and grab a snack. I don’t always get something but definitely enjoy this gorgeous view from Starbucks on the 40th floor  of Columbia Tower.

 

4:00PM

Testing, testing, testing! Finally, I scope out new sprint tasks for the rest of the week.

 

5:00PM

Start my commute home with my audiobook – current read: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick.

When I get home, I feed and take Sophie for a walk/run/puppy meetup in the neighborhood.

 

6:00PM 

Next up, dinner time!

 

7:00PM

Working on my Machine Learning course for a bit.

 

9:00PM

Some Netflix before bed (I’m currently watching Abstract and Ugly Delicious).

 

10:00PM

Winding down for bedtime.
Interested in joining the Dolly team? We’re hiring!