The Checkr Engineering Team: Meet Gabe Westmaas

We’re excited to welcome Gabe Westmaas as our new Director of Product Engineering! In his role, Gabe will lead and mentor a team of engineers, shape our product roadmap, and help grow the engineering organization.

Here’s a little bit about Gabe in his own words:

Tell us about your career path, how did you get into engineering?

I actually went to school for political science, but about three years in, I had to start working full time. This led me down the path of getting into the IT world, and that’s where I fell in love with the creativity and complexity of computer science.

You’ve worked at a lot of great technology companies, including Airbnb. Why Checkr?

When I started thinking about taking on a new role, I knew I wanted four key things: a place where I believed in the mission, a team I was excited about, a leader who had experience growing engineering organizations, and an environment that fostered a culture of collaboration.

What are your goals for the first few months?

My number one goal is learning. In order to be successful, I need to really understand the nuances of our organization and engineering process. That understanding will help me identify roadblocks, improve current processes, and ensure everyone on my team has the tools they need to be successful. In addition to getting to know the team and org, I’m also focused on recruiting and growing the existing team.

How do you ensure engineering teams produce high-quality work?

It really comes down to ownership and clear communication. It’s important that everyone on the team understands why they’re doing what they’re doing. And while I may have thoughts on what type of product features to build or a specific way to solve a problem — when engineers on my team feel a sense of ownership, they’re more likely to come up with the best solutions.

How do you go about making decisions?

When it comes to making decisions, I strongly value hearing diverse and dissenting perspectives. What’s most important is that everyone involved in the decision understands why a decision was made and knows that their point of view was heard and considered. They may not be fully convinced of the decision, but having been heard they are much more likely to commit fully to the decision. It’s also valuable to document the alternatives considered so that in the future people understand how we came to this conclusion.

What do you look for when hiring?

The first thing I look at is the existing team itself. I want to have holistic understanding of the team — including their individual skill-sets, strengths, and working styles. From there, I can identify gaps, build a plan to hire for them, and ensure we have a well-rounded team who’s excited to work together. Having said that, at a high growth startup, I strongly value adaptability as the needs of the team are likely to change over time.

Diversity and inclusion are central to Checkr’s mission. How do you approach diversity recruiting?

A large part of diversity recruiting is reaching out and seeking outside perspectives. As I start to hire at Checkr, I want to audit our existing job descriptions and get input and feedback from a diverse panel, while interviewing as well as a post interview review when we decline women and candidates in underrepresented groups to ensure we evaluated the candidate fairly. I’m also going to focus on identifying new and different channels to source talent from.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I spend a ton of time with my family. My daughter loves riding the “train” aka the SF Muni, and we try and take a trip to the ocean or downtown on most weekends. I also love discovering new food and wine, and my wife (also a Director of Engineering) and I do weekly date nights.

If you’re interested in learning more about Gabe (or joining his team!), drop him a line on LinkedIn.