BigCommerce Employee Spotlight: Rachael Thompson
Welcome to the BigCommerce Employee Spotlight. Each month, we’ll chat with an employee who works on the BigCommerce product. These are the folks behind the scenes who are crafting the BigCommerce developer experience, from SDKs and APIs to themes and documentation. Discover what they’re building, their tools of the trade, and learn about the technologies they’re passionate about.
Hi Rachael, Tell me about your path to BigCommerce.
My path to BigCommerce is one that I think is fairly common. Tech girl goes to LinkedIn, see’s an awesome tech company. Tech girl fills out an application for her dream job. She waits by the phone, waiting… wondering… dreaming… and then a miracle happens, and the awesome tech company sweeps her off her feet.
In real life, this is my story. Being a Developer Advocate at BigCommerce is truly my dream job at a dream company. I spent many years as a teacher. This laid the foundation for me going into this career, as advocacy for my students was a top priority. I left teaching discouraged by a broken system. In the years that followed, I taught myself business operations, how to code and ultimately landed a job in Quality Assurance and Automation Engineering. I loved it, but was missing something. I missed helping others and watching them grow.
This role and my life at BigCommerce makes me whole. I couldn’t be more appreciative of the path that has brought me here.
What do you work on at BigCommerce? What does a typical day look like for you?
As a Developer Advocate, you work on many tasks daily and in many domains. You could be working on a presentation for a conference one minute and in a “go to market” planning meeting the next. I love that I am never stagnant. I am always learning new things and gaining new skills.
My typical day starts early because I am a morning person. I like to get online by 7 AM CST and have coffee while I go over our social media and community accounts. This is also when I try desperately to catch up on emails and slack conversations. Usually around 9 AM is when the meetings start. Some days are more packed than others, so I have to typically plan heads down time. I find this really helps, and allows me to get stuff done. Around 3 or 4 PM CST is when our Australian team comes online and we often have a couple meetings or conversations with them throughout the week. We have long days sometimes, coordinating calendars and events but, all in all, it comes down to the saying, “When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.”
That is how I feel. I love what I do and it doesn’t feel like work.
What’s it like to be part of BigCommerce’s Developer Relations team?
The Developer Relations team, for now, is myself and Lauren Clevenger. We have a blast! We get to dream about what the future of Developer Relations looks like everyday. I am sure she feels similarly, it is like we are forging a new path. Our team welcomes the future with open arms and wants to see spectacular growth in 2021.
What is an important problem that BigCommerce is solving?
The most important problem BigCommerce is solving, to me, is the Open SaaS developer ecosystem problem. How do you have a thriving Open SaaS business that is flexible enough to allow developers from every discipline and language to participate?
We come in ready to help solve this question everyday. I look for opportunities to support our ecosystem and extend our capabilities to meet the needs of more developers. We recognize that to be the best ecommerce solution, we have to partner with the best technologies. Thinking big to me is pivotal to solving our ecosystem constraints long term. What can we build that will allow developers to innovate and grow?
This is not an overnight fix but working as part of a team, on a mission, we will bridge any gaps and make our developer ecosystem the best and easiest to work with.
What projects are you most passionate about building at BigCommerce?
I am most passionate about building an environment of continual learning and support mechanisms focused on developers and their unique needs. I will be a teacher for as long as I live, and I think that most problems can be solved through learning. Learning is not all classroom based, online webinars, sitting down doing x,y, and z. Learning is actually taking in knowledge that you can recall and use later.
I want to create a community that is learning, helping each other, and growing their ability to build solutions for merchants around the world.
Tell us why you chose to work at BigCommerce.
I chose to work at BigCommerce because I know that I can make a difference here on a huge scale. I want to help BigCommerce grow its presence world-wide and be a catalyst for the growth of our developer community. BigCommerce values the things that I do, inclusivity, kindness, generosity and “humbitious-ness”. We put the needs of people at the forefront of what we do. I love working for a company that truly cares about the needs of people.
Describe BigCommerce in three words.
- Open
- Cultivating
- Forward-thinking
What’s the best career advice you’ve been given?
I think the best career advice I have been given was to question and think critically through every problem. I worked closely at my last job with our VP of Engineering. He told me a french proverb that he held in high esteem, “Empty vessels make the most noise.”
He instructed me to be a full vessel. This would require thinking through each problem, observing critical details, asking the right questions, and making assertions that weren’t noise — but facts. This is how a person can stand out in engineering and in leadership. You don’t have to be the loudest vessel, you should be the wisest.
As a developer, how do you approach learning something new?
I like to approach learning eager to the opportunity and open minded. I try not to come into a learning opportunity opinionated. I believe that once you have formed an opinion it is hard to change your mind or open yourself back up. I think a better approach is to be considerate and thoughtful, leaving judgement to those that feel they have some value or stake in the outcome.
What inspires you and your work?
I am most inspired by the work of others in development communities. I get excited seeing new and innovative solutions and talking about them with the developers. I appreciate the art and science that is technology. Being part of different developer communities and seeing what each brings to the table inspires me and my work.
Thank you for reading. You can follow me on Twitter and connect with me on LinkedIn.
