Office Chatter: An Interview With Lauren Krivos
We sat down with software engineer Lauren Krivos, and talked about all things Liberty Mutual, the development culture, and what excites her most about her job.
On occasion, we’ll sit down with one of the members of the Liberty Mutual digital department. In this installment, we’re talking with Lauren Krivos, a software developer who works primarily on our Claims teams.
Q: Could you tell us a bit about your background? You’ve mentioned working in agencies in the past.
Lauren: I went to school for a unique degree, called “New Media Interactive Development.” It was essentially one-third design and UX, and two-thirds web development. Coding the user interface, the front end, has always really excited me.
I worked in consulting and at large agencies before starting at Liberty, but I have to say, Liberty has been my favorite so far. I feel like we really have ownership over the product here, and we’re involved in initial research and designs. In agency life, you’re handed exactly what the client wants, and you walk away when the contract is up.
Q: That’s great to hear — that ownership isn’t a given in a lot of different environments. What does a “regular” day look like for you and your team?
LK: Typically, every day starts with a stand-up meeting. Then we’ll start working on some features, and go out to lunch together as a team. Then we spend the afternoon coding and finishing what we started in the morning. My team is really close, so lunch will often turn into conversations about new technologies and implementation details for those new features.
We have core working hours, and depending on the person and their lifestyle, some teammates will come in a bit earlier than others and leave a bit earlier. Others do the opposite. We’re really flexible and have a high trust relationship on our team. It works for us.
Q: The developers on your team have some great rapport. What about your relationship with your UX team? What does a healthy developer / designer relationship look like to you?
LK: As a front-end developer, I spent a lot of time working side-by-side with our designer and content strategist. We have the UX stories and dev stories on the same (JIRA) board, so we have a lot of insight into each other’s current work and priorities. Whenever we have a large, new feature coming up, we get together in a planning session with UX, developers, and our product owner, and talk about possible solutions. We do a lot of whiteboarding together.
Q: How would you describe the developer culture at Liberty to someone who doesn’t work here? Is it any different than what you originally anticipated?
LK: We’re all in the same place now — we used to be spread out in a few different offices — and the culture has really been great. It’s nice to be under one roof and just around the corner from all of the other teams who work on different parts of the same customer experience. Since I worked in an agency atmosphere before, I was used to small working groups for client projects. It’s amazing, now, to see so many different groups working together towards the same goal.
On top of that, we have a great space to just hang out and decompress. Ping pong tables, air hockey, comfy couches. It’s just a great atmosphere.
Q: What excites you most about your work?
LK: It’s that ownership of the work. From start to finish. It’s really energizing to help plan a feature, work on it, then release it into production and watch the metrics of our customers actually using it. Working within the claims teams, I realize that most of the customers seeing this application could be having one of the worst days of their lives. The fact that I might be able to make something a little easier for them makes me feel pretty good.
Interested in open developer roles at Liberty Mutual? Check out our current job postings.
