Instaclustr Insights provide meaningful insights into team members’ work lives. This time it is Jackson Fleming – Software Engineer, Instaclustr.
What does your role at Instaclustr entail?
I’m a Software Engineer in the Admin Services team within our Engineering department. We build and maintain the tools and infrastructure that our support staff (which we refer to internally as Techops) use to support our managed service offerings. My day-to-day role involves designing, reviewing, building, testing, and supporting tools that other team members at Instaclustr can pick up and use with minimal oversight.
I’m also a member of the Instaclustr Social Club—we are a group of volunteers that organize company events, activities, and other initiatives at Instaclustr. These initiatives range from small pop up style breakfasts to large company outings and everything in between.
What does a typical day look like for you?
To be honest, my day usually has no structure. Our team works very closely with our Techops counterparts to ensure that support staff can do their jobs easily and safely, which means we are very reactive—no two days are the same. The team works collaboratively on new features or changes to our systems, from design to production support. We go through cycles of iteration to ensure we deliver the best solution we possibly can, so my normal day has a mix of design reviews and discussions, whiteboard sessions, coding, code reviews, and testing.
How did you first get interested in a technology career?
When I was young I was that kid that would open and close the motorized garage door because I was curious about how it worked. I’ve always enjoyed playing with technologies and learning how they work, which usually involved breaking stuff! I decided to pursue a career in technology while I was still in high school after learning how to do basic coding in an extracurricular class. I loved the challenge it posed and the mindset needed to solve problems.
And your formal education followed in that path?
Yes! I studied a Bachelor of Software Engineering at the University of Canberra, graduating in early 2016.
When did you join Instaclustr—and why?
I joined Instaclustr in early May 2020. Before this I was looking for a change from working on large corporate IT systems—I wanted to work on some different technologies/problems and was looking for a more relaxed corporate environment. A former manager of mine reached out to me when she heard I was looking for a change and gave me an overview of what working for Instaclustr was like, which ticked pretty much every box I was looking for. I’m pretty sure I applied later that day!
What’s been your favorite part about Instaclustr since joining?
I’ve got two answers to this question: the first answer is probably the most common answer you’ll hear—the corporate culture and people at Instaclustr are incredible. Joining Instaclustr during the pandemic was remarkably easy, despite being completely remote, from my first day I felt accepted and welcomed to the company. There is a genuine care for others that emanates through the Instaclustr, which makes it a great environment to work in.
My second answer is the unique challenge of the work, we offer a 24x7x365 service to our customers, which means all of our tools and solutions need to be ready to go at any time. In Engineering we have pretty much complete ownership of the solutions we develop, from inception to completion. Your team is always there to support you if you need or want it, but you can also embrace the challenge if you want to, and be fairly creative with the solutions you come up with.
In your opinion, what makes someone a good fit to be in tech.?
To succeed (and more importantly enjoy) working in building technology, I believe someone needs to have a curiosity about how things work and a lot of patience. Learning some of the technologies we use day to day takes a lot of time, and you will have a lot of failures along the way. You need to be prepared to be kind to yourself and others as you learn how things work, even when things aren’t working out as planned.
Interested in working for Instaclustr? You can write to us at [email protected].