Meet a Beamer — Jason Amerine Engineering Manager, Platform

Background

How did you get into Engineering?

In my first job out of college, I worked for a marketing company as a Project Manager/Operations Analyst. A large part of my job was around reporting and pulling in a bunch of data from around the business. To automate some of the manual work, I wrote VBA scripts in Excel to pull data from different spreadsheets and create reports and dashboards. My boss realized that I might have a knack for software development and recommended that I take online tutorials and a software development bootcamp. I started to learn Ruby on Rails and realized that it was what I wanted to do as a career. Looking back, this was the greatest advice that I have ever received!

Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

After completing the Software Development Bootcamp at Bloc.io, I started a Software Development/Consulting company called Dittoh with my boss from the marketing company. We built group rating applications in the Worker’s Compensation Insurance Industry. Starting and building a company was the most stressful years of my life, but that experience was invaluable to my career and the lessons learned can be applied to all aspects of life.

What brought you to Beam?

In 2017, Fro reached out on LinkedIn to grab a coffee. Fro and I talked through what we were doing at Dittoh with building new technology and automation for the Worker’s Compensation Insurance Industry. He had a similar story about Beam and how they were doing the same thing in the Dental Insurance Industry. Hearing his passion and excitement for Beam, I had to learn more. I met the rest of the Beam team and knew this was the place for me!

Working at Beam

What makes Beam different?

Without a doubt, the people. Everyone at Beam comes to work (or logs on from home…) every day doing what’s best to help Beam be a world-class benefits company. This common goal results in a fast-paced, egoless, and inspiring place to work.

What do you enjoy most about working at Beam?

It is honestly really hard to choose what I enjoy most since there are so many great aspects of working at Beam! One thing that is truly unique is the number of avenues for career growth. Since Beam is growing so quickly as a company, there are constantly opportunities to step into new roles and grow your influence within your team and company. Beam does a phenomenal job at investing in each employee’s growth within their current roles and as they stretch toward future roles.

How would you describe the team culture?

Super collaborative. I always feel comfortable reaching out to anyone within the company.

Whether it is within a given team, across teams in the Technology Org, or between different departments around the company, everyone is always willing to jump in to discuss an idea or answer questions.

What has been one of the most challenging projects you worked on at Beam?

Early on at Beam, we had a single staging area that was shared by all development teams. This became a pain point for our teams and was a pretty large bottleneck for releasing new code to production. In 2019, we took on the project of making our staging environments more scalable and accessible for each developer. We built (and still use to this day) a process to test new features in independent staging/production-like areas that we call “Ephemeral Environments”. These environments can be spun up/down by any developer for our services and can be used for any amount of time. This project significantly improved our software development lifecycle and allows our teams to fully test new features and in turn confidently deploy code to production.

Advice

What is some advice you would give someone who wants to apply to Beam?

Don’t overthink it! Applying for any new job is nerve-racking and the interviewing is always intimidating. Here at Beam, we make a conscious effort to make the interview process painless and most importantly informative. You get to meet a bunch of people from many different departments and learn all about our culture. Throughout the process, you will learn how you fit into the role and within our teams at Beam.

Fun Stuff

What do you like to do when you’re not working?

I love spending time with my wife and our Black Labrador Retriever Charlie! I am also a huge sports fan, so I enjoy watching football, basketball, and baseball games and cheering for the Buckeyes, Cincinnati Bengals, and Cincinnati Reds. During the warmer months, I spend a lot of time playing golf.

How do you decompress?

Since high school, I’ve been obsessed with lawn care. I love learning about the science that goes into a healthy lawn and trying new ways to improve it. It is a great way to get your mind off work and improve the overall curb appeal of your home!