Taking the Leap into Software Engineering

At Rimeto, we value smart people, not resumes. We’re willing to take chances on people who have great life experiences, a desire to solve really tough problems, and are constantly stretching themselves to be better. Placing motivated people within a supportive culture that is focused on learning and exploration is a win-win for everyone — our employees develop a passion for their work and we benefit from their inspired ideas.

Today, we’re sitting down with one of our talented software engineers, Josh Freedman, to discuss why he decided to move from London to San Francisco and leave behind a successful career in finance to become a software engineer.

Maxwell: Tell us a little bit about your journey before Rimeto. Where were you living and what were you working on?

Josh: I’m from the UK and studied mechanical engineering at university. After graduating, I worked in finance in investment management with the same company for 10 years. In 2016, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to take an extended career break, during which I re-trained as a software engineer through self-directed study.

I also used my time off to travel and learn to surf. Sadly, progress to becoming a professional surfer has been much slower.

M: Self-directed study — what does that mean exactly?

J: Well there’s a ton of really great free resources available online to learn computer science. I particularly enjoyed MIT’s OpenCourseWare which has videos of the lectures, alongside notes, recitations and exams, for every undergraduate course. There’s even (surprisingly captivating) lectures on LISP from the ’80s by the authors of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.

M: Wow, that’s really incredible. During your reflection time, what motivated you to make the pivot from finance to software engineering?

J: Besides getting to work with some great people, the part of my previous career that I had enjoyed the most was the analytical problem solving. I wanted that to be a bigger focus of my day-to-day work. I had a taste of coding from studying mechanical engineering at university and working on some personal projects. But it was during my time away from work, studying computer science fundamentals, where my fascination with the subject really grew.

M: As you’ve worked to master a new area, what have been some of the biggest challenges you faced and how have you overcome them?

J: Making a career switch isn’t easy, especially when you’re in the Bay Area where there are so many talented software engineers. In some sense, I was starting over again with a blank resume. I was fortunate to find Rimeto, where there is a strong focus on hiring people based on aptitude and cultural fit. The company made it clear from my first interaction with them that they welcome candidates with non-traditional backgrounds and I was happy to hear that there were other engineers at the company who didn’t study computer science at university.

M: I’m sure you met with many companies during your search for your next role. What about Rimeto stood out?

J: To be honest, the first thing that impressed me were the founders. You guys are genuine, warm and humble. Plus, you’ve been very thoughtful in creating a supportive and collaborative working culture, which makes Rimeto a great place to learn. It was really important for me to connect with the founders and also the team.

During the hiring process my interviewers didn’t just seem very smart, but they were friendly and engaged throughout the entire process. Everyone was very generous with their time and I took note of the energy and sense of purpose each interviewer brought to the conversations.

Lastly, I was also impressed by the client base the company had built in a short time frame. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Fortune 500 companies and top universities in the world were already customers. The product market fit seemed strong and was universal across industry and size of the company. This gave me confidence in the company’s future.

M: Self-improvement seems to be a recurring theme for you. How has working at Rimeto helped you learn and grow?

J: I’m privileged to work alongside experienced engineers who have deep expertise in building and scaling software. My peers have all shown genuine interest in helping me to learn new technical areas and improve as an engineer on a daily basis.

For example, at Rimeto, each member of the Engineering team rotates weekly as the primary technical point of contact for any system issues that may surface. I remember the first time I was assigned as the “oncall” engineer. This was simultaneously a huge adrenaline rush and a weighty responsibility for me, as I realized that the team and our customers were relying on me to keep our platform operational. The amount of hands-on learning from the rapid interactions with my colleagues as we delved into the underlying systems was incredible.

M: On a slightly different note, what is something that you’re building that’s especially exciting?

J: Engineers are encouraged to suggest areas they’d like to work on and the team is always receptive to new ideas. This level of autonomy is very rewarding and motivational. I’m really enjoying the creativity involved in working both on abstract computer science problems and the actual implementation of their solutions.

As an example, I’m currently working on what we hope will be significant performance improvements to how we import customer data when building an enterprise graph. The general idea is to save a significant amount of work by calculating the “diff” between two versions of the graph and rather than having to load the entire graph (which is largely unchanged), we can just load the updated nodes and edges. It’s similar in concept to how Git works with respect to code.

This was an idea I had come up with as part of a brainstorm. The team was not only supportive of moving forward, but they also provided invaluable feedback and insights on everything from technical design to code.

M: What advice would you give to someone looking to transition to software engineering from a non-traditional background?

J: Make sure that you are genuinely interested in computer science. There’s no substitute for genuine curiosity when faced with the somewhat daunting challenge of learning a new subject. If you do have that passion, absolutely go for it. It’s a real luxury to get to solve puzzles with smart, friendly people for a living.

M: Josh, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and for the tremendous impact you have every day at Rimeto.

J: It’s my pleasure.

We’re hiring and looking for talented engineers to help us build the world’s best workplace tools.